The End of Magic
by Adelina Le Morte March
Summary: Miles couldn't have been happier for Allie and Will. Until, that is, he began to have memories of a beautiful Druid girl named Freya from his past life and the confusion started big time. Miles/Allie/Will. Implied Merlin/Freya.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: This is based more off of the Avalon High movie than the book, except that I went with the book's ending of making Allie/Ellie (whichever you want to call her) the Lady of the Lake and Will King Arthur instead of having Allie turn out to be King Arthur, because the plot of this fanfic wouldn't work with that ending. Mr. Moore is still Mordred, though. This is mostly a Miles/Allie (implied Merlin/Freya) story. For the record, I love Will/Allie (Ellie), they're usually my favorite AH pairing, but this idea just wouldn't leave my head, and while I think there are some Marco/Allie/Will stories up, I have yet to see a Miles/Allie/Will one, so that made me want to write this even more. Why? Because it seems like no one else has yet. **

Allie stood in the locker room, her mind whirling. She had to find Will, she was completely desperate to, but there was no sign of him; everyone was asking where he was. She only hoped they would get to him before his stepbrother Marco, the reincarnation of Mordred, did.

She drew in a long, sharp breath as Miles appeared, coming back from the other end. "No sign of Will in there."

"I need you to concentrate," she urged him. "Just tell me where he is." Her friend Miles was kind of psychic or something; if he really was Merlin, same as Marco was Mordred, maybe he could have a vision telling her where Will was before things went horribly wrong, spinning out of their control forever.

"I told you," Miles said, "I can't just make it happen on demand." What did she think he was? Some kind of fortune-telling machine? Just put in a coin and out came the answer or something? Unlikely. Even if he _could_ make it happen like that... No, he didn't think he could stand it.

"Yes you can, Miles," Allie said softly, "I know you can do it."

"It hurts, Allie," he faltered.

"I know."

Taking a deep breath, knowing he had no choice, Miles closed his eyes and forced himself to concentrate. Also, he braced himself for the severe pain he knew would be forthcoming.

_Come on, come on... _

He winced and let out a faint sound of pain, reaching up and clutching the sides of his forehead as it came to him. It felt like he was being hit in the head with a brick!

_Marco, leading-then finally_ pushing_-Will, forcibly by the arm, into the school theater... _Miles felt his eyes shoot open. "He's in the school theater," he told Allie. He panted for breath. "With Marco."

They raced out of the locker room, running as fast as they could for the theater.

When they reached it, there was indeed a boy, about the right age to be Will Wagner, lying on his back outside as if he'd been hurt.

Allie was about to throw her arms around his neck and demand to know if he was okay, except then she realized it wasn't Will.

It was Marco.

"Marco!" she snapped tersely, glaring down at him. "Where's Will?"

A groan of pain came from inside of the theater, and without even waiting for Marco's answer (what excuse, Allie figured, could he possibly have?) she and Miles left him there and went on in.

Marco watched them go without protest.

"Will!" Allie found Will, lying as Marco had been doing outside, near some kind of cardboard castle set on the stage.

"Allie." He sat up.

"What has Marco done to you?" She was sitting beside him now, petrified.

"Marco?" he echoed as she put her hand on his shoulder. "He was trying to warn me."

"No," Allie insisted. "Marco is Mordred; he's... He's trying to destroy you before you figure out who you really are."

He looked at her as if she were crazy. "_What_?"

"What I told you tonight, it's not a metaphor. Your destiny is to change the world."

Miles looked over his shoulder; something wasn't right.

"You _are_ King Arthur," Allie finished telling Will.

A light above the audience seats came on and their teacher, Mr. Moore, was sitting there. "You should listen to Allie, Mr. Wagner."

They jumped in surprise.

Allie slowly began to stand up. "Mr. Moore?" What was _he _doing here?

Mr. Moore stood up, clutching his cane as he came towards them. "She's absolutely right."

Miles felt a shiver go up his spine.

"About everything," Mr. Moore continued. "Except for one small detail." He smiled, almost standing right in front of them now. "Marco..." He took off his glasses and his American accent suddenly became overtly British. "Marco's not Mordred." He slipped the glasses into his pocket. "Oh, no, no, no, no, no." Gripping his cane and tossing it up in the air, catching it, holding it like a magical staff, he added, "_I_ am."

"No," gasped Allie. "It's not possible, you _can't _be!"

"Ta-da," he sneered. "Surprise ending."

Just as he lifted his cane/staff, as if to do them some harm, Marco came rushing in and knocked him down into an open trap door under the stage.

Mr. Moore crashed against a number of musical instruments, a couple cymbals, and a few props currently in storage.

All of them-Miles, Allie, and Will-were instantly at Marco's side, looking down at the sprawled-out Mr. Moore below.

"That was really cool," Miles told Marco, nodding.

"You okay, Will?" Marco looked to his stepbrother, his face full of concern.

"Yeah," he panted. "I think so."

"Wait, this doesn't make any sense," Allie had to say. "You've been trying to destroy Will." How could he suddenly care so much about him?

"No," Marco explained. "I've been protecting him." He reached under his shirt and pulled out a silver medallion attached to a chain he wore around his neck. "Look," he said. "My father was in the Order of the Bear. And when he died, I swore to continue on."

"What about all the terrible things you did?" asked Allie.

"I needed to get Mr. Moore...Mordred...to trust me." He gave Allie a reassuring nod. "Allie, you were right. Will is Arthur and Miles is Merlin."

Miles looked at him excitedly, his whole face lit up. "I am? _Really_?" Grinning over at Allie, he sighed happily. "Cool."

"I want you to know that treating you guys the way I did was the hardest thing I've ever had to do." Marco gave them an apologetic look. "But I only did it to keep you both away from Will and out of danger." Now, to Will, "Sorry for all the things I did to you."

"What are you talking about?" Will said.

"Okay, let's just..." Allie stammered. "Let's just get out of here." She grabbed Will's arm.

But before they could all leave, Mordred appeared, coming up from below the stage where Mr. Moore had been crumbled in a useless heap a minute ago. No more school-teacher. Now he was an angry medieval knight, a traitor out for revenge, through and through. His cane even _looked_ like a staff at this point.

The first thing he did was to lift and wave his staff angrily at Marco. Stupid boy! He'd nearly just spoiled _everything_!

A force shot out from the staff and knocked him away from the others, onto the stage floor.

"I was just going to try to destroy you, Arthur, by simply crushing your spirit," Mordred informed Will. "But I can see now that I'm going to have to take care of you." He paused and pointed at them. "_All _of you..." He looked hardest at Allie. "The old fashioned way."

_Oh this is bad_, thought Miles, _really, really bad_.

"Starting with this...pest..."

Seeing he meant Allie, Will exclaimed, "Don't touch her!"

But he was no threat, at the moment, to the staff. Its force shot right over him, straight to Allie, knocking her flat on her back, several feet away, just like Marco.

"Allie!" Miles ran over to help her. "Come on, Allie." He bent down and pulled her up onto her feet by the arm. Then he threw the first prop he could get his hands on at Mordred. "Ugh!"

Nothing happened; a magic force-field, part of the staff's power, no doubt, kept objects from hitting him. Even when Allie joined in throwing things, it didn't do a bit of good.

Miles grimaced. Yes, Mordred was evil, but he was also still his teacher. "I guess I won't be getting that A," he noted.

Mordred turned the staff on him next. _You definitely deserve this, Emrys; I told you I would _never_ forgive you!_

Miles fell to the floor, hitting his side hard upon impact.

"Wha-" began Allie, rage building up inside of her. She couldn't explain it, but it was seeing Merlin (well, Miles, actually) hurt that snapped something inside of her. Like she knew he was going for Arthur (um, Will) next and that was bad enough, but going for Merlin (Miles) was already a step too far. He should not have done that.

She wouldn't let him hurt her friend. Either of them. No, not today. Mordred wouldn't win. She had to do something-_anything_. Finding a plastic sword on a piece of shimmery blue fabric roughly the color of a sparkling lake, she picked it up and tossed it to Will. "Catch!"

It passed from her, to Miles, who was up again now and standing between herself and Will, straight into the hands of Arthur, like a game of pass-it-on or hot potato.

Will stared at the plastic sword he held in pure bafflement.

Mordred laughed, long and loud. "Do you really think a silly toy sword is going to stop me?"

But the sword in Will's hand suddenly glowed and magically turned from a toy into a real weapon; a beautiful sword, unequaled by anything else.

"What..." Allie gazed in amazement. She wasn't sure what she'd expected, but for whatever reason she had not been fully prepared for this. "What's happening?"

Miles recited, "Any sword in the hands of Arthur becomes Excalibur..." That was what they had read in Allie's parents' book! Will was Arthur; and Allie had given him a sword!

"Impossible!" cried Mordred, his gaze going from Will holding Excalibur to Allie. "I thought maybe you could be the Lady of Shalott. _Maybe_. Though the fact that you never so much as glanced sideways at Lance was curious if that were true. The Lily Maid never even _met_ Arthur, and yet you've been Will's shadow since you arrived at Avalon High. But the Lady of the Lake? The only one who can give Arthur a sword in accordance with the legend? Never. I would have never missed that and let you live this long, if that was the case, Allie. You would have had an unfortunate accident on your first day of school and been out of my way."

"And yet here we are," declared Allie.

Without thinking, Miles found himself softly chanting something; words that felt right in his mouth, as if he'd used them before, but words that were definitely not English.

_The staff_, he realized, _it's mine_.

In response to his chanting, the staff burned the hands of Mordred and flew to him. He lifted his hands and reached up to catch the staff in mid-air. "Whoa." He grinned. "Being Merlin rules!"

"Hey!" shouted a voice. "Hey! It's after hours, no one's supposed to be in here."

They whipped their heads around to see a security guard and a few policemen coming up the steps of the stage, and they did not look too thrilled.

Mordred, who oddly enough had turned back into Mr. Moore, looking much less warrior-like and more akin to a school teacher again, when Miles called back the staff, had an idea. "Officers! Arrest that boy!" he pointed at Will. "He brought a weapon to school! Threatened the life of a school teacher."

Quickly, Miles took the sword back from Will. It immediately became plastic again, and he, shrugging, as if it weren't anything of importance (and, really, it no longer _was_), dropped it on the ground at the nearest officer's feet.

"Good luck saving the world from Juvie, your Highness," mutter-hissed Mr. Moore, smirking at Will.

"I'm sorry," said the officer, clearly puzzled. "Are you saying this boy was threatening you with a plastic sword?"

"No, no. You oaf." Mr. Moore was losing his patience. "With a _real _sword!" He glanced down at the sword; it was obviously plastic. "Alright, that is a plastic sword. But it was a real sword, because she gave it to Merlin to give to him and it became _whoosh_! Excalibur! Because he... He is King Arthur..." Finally noticing the weird looks everyone was giving him, he snapped, "Oh come on! Who's the teacher here?"

"We just came in here," Allie said innocently, "to get some fake armor for the school mascot."

"Yeah, we had permission and everything," Miles piped up.

"I have no idea what Mr. Moore is talking about," added Will.

"Um, what about the kid on the floor?" The officer noticed Marco.

"Oh, him," Miles invented quickly, "he's got Narcolepsy. He's always falling asleep; we really can't take him anywhere."

Marco, who was starting to come to (unlike the others, he'd been knocked semi-unconscious when Mordred used the staff on him), and heard what Miles had just said, getting a vague sense of what was happening, quickly started fake snoring.

"They kidnapped me!" Mr. Moore shouted. "They're lying."

"I'm a national merit scholar," Miles said pointedly. "I don't kidnap teachers, I suck up to them."

"Wagner," said the security guard, who happened to be a big football fan. "Shouldn't you be on the field?"

"Yes, sir, I should be."

"Well, get out there and get us to state!"

"We really need to talk," he told Allie.

"Later," Allie said. "Right now you have a game to win."

He stared at her, his head cocked slightly to the left.

"Go!" she reminded him, laughing.

Mr. Moore's eyes widened. "No!" He lunged at Will's retreating back.

The policemen grabbed him. "They're going to love this nut-bar downtown."

"No!" he shrieked as they dragged him away. "King Arthur! I'm supposed to defeat him! I have to destroy Will! It's my destiny! It's my destiny!"

Miles fought back a chuckle.

Allie swallowed a giggle. "We did it, we stopped Mordred."

Marco got up, rolling his eyes at Miles._ Narcolepsy indeed_!

"Oh no," Allie groaned. "I just thought of something."

"What?" Miles looked concerned.

"What if this is just another one of my crazy King Arthur dreams, and in two minutes I wake up in my bedroom?"

He shook his head. "It's not a dream, Allie. You're the Lady of the Lake." His gaze shifted to his staff. "And I'm Merlin. Check this out." He concentrated on his staff and transformed it into a cool-looking pen. "Cool, huh?"

"Let's get out of here," Allie sighed.

"Wait!" said Marco.

She looked at him.

"Thank you." He got down on one knee reverently. "Milady."

"Oh, wow," she laughed, exchanging an awkward glance with Miles, "_bowing_."

And the three of them walked out, arm-in-arm, as if they'd been best friends for centuries.

Oh, wait, that was right, they probably _had_ been.

_*-One Week Later-*_

Sitting down at lunch, Allie noticed something was off about Miles. He had that distant, tired look about him.

Marco was out of school for a dentist appointment, Lance was at home sick with the flu, and Will and Jen hadn't shown up in the cafeteria yet, so it was only the two of them at the moment.

"Miles," asked Allie, "did you have another vision?"

"Kind of," he said. "See, the last couple of days, it's like I'm seeing things, but it's not the future."

"Then what the heck is it?"

Miles swallowed hard. "I think it's Camelot."

"Camelot," Allie repeated.

"Yeah, like, when we all used to live there." His eyes shifted downwards, suddenly fixated with his lunch-tray. "In..." He looked both ways and lowered his voice. "You know, our past lives."

"When Will was Arthur, you were Merlin, and I was the Lady of the Lake?" Even though she was a believer (they _all_ had to be, after defeating Mordred... Well, except for Jen and Lance, they hadn't been there and of course it really wasn't the sort of thing they could just randomly mention to them over burgers and fries), it still felt pretty weird, saying it out loud. She didn't think she'd ever truly get used to it.

Miles nodded. "If I saw what I think I saw, a lot of things about Arthur, from the legends... I'm not sure they got it right."

Allie shrugged. "Course not. My parents can't even agree on all the details; there's way too many stories."

Miles opened his mouth, then shut it, like there was something he wanted to say but he didn't know how.

Wow, thought Allie, Miles at a loss for words... That's definitely a first. "I almost wish I didn't tell them what happened with Mr. Moore... Ever since they found out I'm supposedly the reincarnation of the Lady of the Lake they won't leave me alone." She hadn't meant to tell them, but after the game they'd seemed so disappointed-especially her mother-that there was no epic public battle revealing Will as Arthur, that she'd had to take pity on them and explain that they'd been wrong about Marco but not about Will Wagner. Which, of course, resulted in her having to mention she was the one who gave him Excalibur, making her the Lady of the Lake. "They seriously came out with all these books last night, put them on the coffee table in front of me, switched off the TV, and started going over all the legends. They went on and on and on about how no one can even agree what the Lady of the lake was, and how some say she was a high priestess of an ancient pre-Christian religion or something-"

"She was a Druid," Miles blurted softly. "I mean, _you_ were."

"How do you know?" Allie asked. "Did you see it in your vision?"

"Yeah, you were in a cage," he said, picking at his food. "I let you out. I don't think they allowed magic beings or Druids in Camelot's early days."

"Then what were _you_ doing there, Merlin the magician?" teased Allie.

Dead serious, Miles replied, "I don't think they knew what I was."

"Wow, you really _did_ see it," Allie noted.

"Not all of it," Miles told her. "Bits and pieces. I think I hid you after I got you out of the cage, for a little while, but I don't know what happened, how it turned out. How you went from a Druid to an arm under the water."

"Maybe it'll come back to you later," Allie suggested. "In _The Once and Future King_, Merlin lived through time backwards. Maybe that's why your visions don't always connect. Like, when Will-_Arthur_-was rising, you saw future things to help him, but now your mind's going back in time."

"Whoa."

"What?"

"You actually read _The Once and Future King_?" Miles asked, as if in shock.

"Yeah." Allie crinkled her forehead. "You haven't read it?"

"No, I have," he assured her. "I'm just surprised _you _did. It's a pretty big book."

"Very funny, Miles." She rolled her eyes. Of _course _she'd read it! It was always lying around the house, her parents being who they were, and she had to have _something_ to do on countless boring Saturdays when she was routinely the new girl no one had bothered to invite anywhere.

"Your name was Freya, by the way," he mumbled.

"What?"

"In Camelot," he said, his voice barely a whisper now. "Your name was Freya."

"Freya..." Strangely enough, it _did_ feel familiar, and there was something else, something to do with Miles, maybe, she could sense herself trying to recall. But she wasn't like him; she couldn't make herself have visions. She had her dreams, sometimes, her crazy King Arthur dreams (less and less often since Mr. Moore had been taken care of), but that was about it.

Miles sighed and pulled out the homework from his earlier classes. He always liked to have them done ahead of time. And, right now, it was a welcome distraction. A win-win.

"Miles, there's something else, isn't there?" Allie said softly. "Something you don't want to tell me."

"I can't remember how it turned out," he said. "So it doesn't matter."

"But, why-" she began.

Only, Will and Jen were coming over to their table now, and as Jen didn't know about all this 'return of Arthur' mumbo-jumbo, Allie had to let it go for the time being.

"Hi, Allie." Jen set down her tray and waved at them. "Hi, Miles."

"Hey, Gwen." He blinked and shook it off, forcing himself to stay in the present. "I mean, Jen."

"Hey, Allie." Will bent down and kissed her before sliding into the seat next to her.

A week ago, on the night of the big game, them kissing hadn't bothered Miles at all; he'd been happy for them, then. Especially for Allie, cuz he knew how much she liked Will. But things were getting so weird, with all these visions from the past, now that he remembered Freya (albeit pretty dimly, his memory teaming with huge gaping holes you could drive a truck through) and knew Allie was her reincarnation, seeing her with Will hurt in a way he couldn't explain. Not even to himself.

"Hey!"

Miles looked up to see the girl he'd hugged the night of the game waving shyly at him. This was actually the first time he'd seen her since then. She'd gone away on a short vacation with her family. She had sent Miles a few emails and text messages, though, so there was a chance she was interested.

"Still think she's a vampire, Miles?" Allie joked.

"No," he half-laughed, remembering how the first time he'd seen that girl he had been too nervous to talk to her.

"Miles is blushing," Jen giggled.

"I'm not," he protested.

"Yeah, you are, your face is all red."

"Oh my gosh, Miles, you _are_ all red," Allie laughed.

Will chuckled and gave him a light punch on the arm.

He could have tolerated the teasing if he'd felt more confident that it was in fact the girl he'd thought he had a crush on up till now that was making his face feel hot. There was no other explanation, but everything was spinning. He was over-tired, and he needed some air.

Miles stood up, a bit shakily, and began walking with his only half-eaten tray of food to the garbage bin, when a particularly stocky group of jocks more or less stampeded him in an attempt to get some Jell-O before the lunch lady was completely sold out.

He blacked out for maybe thirty seconds or so and then woke to his friends standing over him.

Jen looked a bit scared, bordering on hysterical, but Will assured her Miles was in fact not actually trampled to death and she calmed down.

"Are you okay?" Allie, kneeling beside him, exclaimed anxiously.

"I'm fine," he murmured. "Though, I think I saw part of my life flash before my eyes." He cringed and moved his jaw round, feeling a slight bruise on the side of his chin. "At least, I _think_ it was my life. Was I ever talking smack to a dragon that sounded kind of like John Hurt?"

Will laughed.

Allie and Jen sighed in relief.

The bell for the end of lunchtime rang. Miles acknowledged the familiar, ear-spiting sound gratefully. Time to force his head out of the clouds and get on with the day. Maybe, if he was lucky, by the time the bell signaling the end of last period rang, he'd feel back to normal.

Well, as normal as a teenage kid who's recently found out he's Merlin from Arthurian legends reborn into modern-day America can ever be, anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hey, Mrs. Pennington," said Miles awkwardly.

It was always a little uncomfortable, talking to Allie's parents. Now that they knew he was Merlin, they had developed this tendency to get a little, for lack of a better word, _starstruck_, around him. In other words, they beamed at him..._a lot_. It was kind of, well, weird, seeing two grown-ups constantly grinning at you, when you hadn't even done anything to earn it, like, say, flash them your most recent straight-A report card. But at least he got off easier than poor Will. Whenever _he_ showed up, it always looked like it took everything in Allie's parents' power not to literally start bowing and groveling. Sure, there were probably much worse things in life than being adored-and constantly welcomed with open arms whenever you turned up-by your best friend's parents, but that didn't mean it wasn't a tad creepy as well.

"So nice to see you again, Miles." She held the door open for him. "Allie's out back, changing the filter in the pool."

"When did you guys get a pool?" he asked.

"It's been there the whole time," she explained; "we just had some trouble turning the heating system on so that we could use it most of the year, not just in summer." Seeing as they were going to be there three years minimum, it seemed a waste not to use the pool. She and her husband didn't do a ton of swimming, but Allie, along with track, had always been somewhat partial to it. And considering she was the reincarnation of the Lady of the Lake, maybe that wasn't so very surprising.

Miles nodded. "Okay, then."

"Go on back," she said. Over her shoulder, she added, "Help yourself to anything in the fridge on the way, if you want!"

"Thanks, Mrs. Pennington!" he called back, already halfway to the sliding glass door that led to the patio and presumably the pool as well.

Mr. Pennington was sitting on the couch doing a crossword puzzle. "Seven letter word-"

"-Neptune," Miles finished for him shortly, forgetting that Mr. Pennington hadn't actually _said _what the clue was yet. Usually his seeing the future didn't work like that, things just jumping out at him painlessly, but occasionally, as of late, it did; it varied and depended on a lot of different factors.

"-for 'god of the sea' (Roman)." Mr. Pennington completed his sentence, then took in what Miles had just said. "Thanks, Miles." He smiled at him, picked up his pencil, and wrote the answer into the puzzle.

"No problem."

Outside, Allie had actually finished changing the filter almost twenty minutes ago. Now she was just floating on an inflatable raft with her eyes closed. It would have been a little cold, even with the pool heating, because she was floating _above_ it, but she had a purple wrap over her swimsuit that kept her from getting too chilled.

Everything was so peaceful, floating like this. She was so lost in the sound of the wind blowing a number of fallen dry leaves on the patio back and forth that she didn't register the sound of the door opening, or hear Miles come out.

Miles didn't know what hit him. One second, he was fine. The next, he'd caught sight of Allie, just floating motionlessly on the inflatable pool-raft, and he was suddenly and inexplicably _crying_. There were tears in his eyes, a major catch in his throat, and he even had to fight a rather embarrassing-sounding sniffle.

Ever so sadly, his vision blurred by his tears, he focused his attention on the raft. He felt his hand lift up automatically, and maybe he muttered something briefly in that same non-English language he'd spoken to call back his staff from Mordred, but afterward he couldn't remember it, what he'd actually said.

All he knew, when it was over, was that, he'd snapped out of it, completely stopped crying and come back to his normal self, and the edge of the pool-raft was on _fire_.

_Okay, _so_ not cool!_ Miles cupped his hands around his mouth. "Allie!"

Allie felt heat near her ankle and then her calf on one side of raft and, opening her eyes, saw fire burning into the rubber. "Ahh!" She flung herself sideways and, in so doing, turned the raft (and herself) upside down into the water.

Well, Miles thought, that's _one _way to put out a fire...

Coughing and spluttering, Allie swam up to the surface. "Oh my god, Miles!"

He was instantly at the poolside. "I am so sorry!"

"_You_ did that?" Her mouth hung open in disbelief. A few drops of heavily chlorinated water rolled from her upper-lip and onto her tongue, but she was too shocked to notice or care about that.

"I think I did," he admitted, grimacing. "Not on purpose," he added quickly. "Here let me help you." He stuck out his hand to pull her out.

"That whole magician thing is really coming back to you, isn't it?" Allie couldn't help commenting.

Miles shuddered. "I'm not sure I want to talk about it. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." She laughed a little, as if to try and assure him of the truthfulness of her aforementioned statement. "Can you get my towel? It's on the deckchair."

He looked over his shoulder, saw which deckchair she meant, got the towel, and handed it to her.

For a minute there, he'd been semi-tempted to see if he could do something totally crazy, like try and make it come over to them magically, but he quickly thought better of it. Almost setting Allie on fire was probably a big enough magical mishap for one day without adding anything else to it. Besides, if it didn't work, he would look pretty dang stupid.

Miles _hated _looking stupid.

When they went inside and upstairs, Allie went into the bathroom to change. "You can use the computer in my room while you're waiting, if you want to."

"Okay." That was good; he wanted to see if the new teacher, Mr. Moore's replacement, Mr. Guy, had responded to his email. Since Mr. Moore had turned out to be in league with pure evil and the forces of darkness and all that good stuff, he'd had to start from scratch at making himself Teacher's Pet. All that work to make Mr. Moore like him, totally wasted. Ugh. So typical.

He sat down, started up Allie's computer, and signed into his email.

"Yes!" he exclaimed, as Allie came back into the room, having finished changing. "Good chance I'll be getting that A after all."

Allie smiled and shook her head. Ah, Miles. There probably wasn't anyone in the _world_ who was more obsessed with good grades than he was. She'd decided to find it charming. The only other option was to let it drive her nuts.

"Let's see if _you're_ getting an A," Miles said, signing out of his email and, seemingly, beginning to sign into Allie's.

"Hey, wait," Allie said, taking a step towards the screen, looking confused. "How are you getting onto my email? You don't know my password."

"Ooh, _MrsWilliamWagner4Ever_... " He made a face of mock surprise. "I cracked the code," Miles said sarcastically. He didn't even need to be psychic to guess _that _one. He hoped, though, that none of his new unexplainable feelings about Allie's fascination with Will came through in his sardonic, persnickety tone.

"That is_ not _my password," Allie lied, too quickly.

"Then why did it just let me in?" Miles countered.

"Okay, fine." She rolled her eyes. "It is. So what?"

"Nothing." Miles shrugged his shoulders. "Nope, all you've got is the school newsletter." He made a face. "God, Allie, when was the last time you cleaned out your trash on this thing?"

"Well, moving from place to place kinda had choke-hold on my time for a while," she said, reaching out and shoving his chair aside.

The chair had wheels, so he sailed straight to the other side of the room.

Allie started checking her own email. "Lance is still sick...Jen can't remember what the homework for tonight is, even though she brought Lance his..."

"No word from Captain Everything?" Miles teased.

"Honestly, Miles, sometimes I think you live to mock me."

"Don't flatter yourself," he laughed. "It's not just you. I mock everyone; I don't discriminate."

For the first time, Allie noticed he was eating a tuna sandwich; she could smell it all the way across the room. "Where did you get that sandwich?"

As if noticing it for the first time himself, Miles wrinkled his nose and looked down. "I don't even know. I just knew I was hungry."

"You don't mean..." Allie blinked at him. "You made it appear from the fridge all the way up here?"

"Your parents said I could," he said defensively.

"No, I mean... Your magic, it's getting stronger."

"Yeah, I figured that much out." He'd also told her he didn't want to talk about it. Was it so hard for her to just _drop _it?

"Can you bring _anything_ from the fridge downstairs up here?"

Miles grunted. "What do you want?"

"What about the strawberries?" she asked. "They're in a plastic container behind the olives."

"Fine," he agreed, somewhat grudgingly. "But, Allie, you do realize the last time I did magic today, before the whole sandwich thing, I almost _killed_ you, right? I hold no responsibility for what happens."

"Yeah, sure, Miles," Allie said hurriedly. "I sign the imaginary waiver. Make it happen."

"If you die, can I have your locker?"

"_Yes_, Miles!" she groaned. "If the uncontrollable magic strawberries kill me, you can have my locker. Happy?"

"Yep." He concentrated, wondering if he could really make it happen on demand when someone was watching so intently. Would the strawberries appear or would he just look like a constipated idiot? "I've got something." His hands, which had been closed, opened, revealing something soft and red in thin, papery clear plastic.

Allie fought back a giggle. "That's not a strawberry."

Miles looked at the object. Allie was right, it wasn't a strawberry; it was a red rose. "It's the right color, at least." He held it out to her. "Here. You take it."

"Thanks." Allie took the rose from him. "It's pretty."

"Hey!" cried Mr. Pennington's voice from downstairs. "Allie? Have you seen the red rose I bought for your mother? I can't find it."

She and Miles met each other's eyes and cracked up. Miles laughed so hard he actually fell out of the chair and landed on the floor with a distinctive _thump_.

"Everything all right up there?" called Mrs. Pennington. "I heard a thump."

"We're fine," Allie gasped, trying to make herself stop laughing and actually _breathe_.

After saying goodbye to Allie, Miles started walking home. It was still light out, so he didn't have anything to worry about. In fact, while he was still on the Penningtons' block, he saw Jen out riding her bike.

She back-pedalled to put on the brakes when she saw him. "Hey!"

"Hey." He kept walking, but slower, so that she could easily ride alongside him and talk, if she wanted.

He didn't really see _why_ she'd want to, though; he was really only friends with her because Allie was sort of Will's new girlfriend (well, she _was_, wasn't she, technically? There was no use denying it), and for some reason Will Wagner was still friends with his ex. Then again, Jen, Lance, and Will had been close since first grade. What did Miles know about having that kind of attachment? To _anyone_?

Until Allie had shown up and just started talking to him out of the blue, he'd had no friends.

Unless, of course, you counted Will's occasionally intervening on his behalf as an act of friendship. Which he kind of did, in a way, but it was complicated. He felt close to Will simply because he was Arthur, and he had a feeling he was-or _would_ be, maybe, if he remembered everything about Camelot, not just bits and pieces-fond of Arthur, and also he felt a bit indebted to him for, to his credit, never having been-at least not in _this_ life-directly mean to him. Sure, Marco, it turned out, never meant him any real harm, only pretending to be mean, but that didn't automatically erase the annoyance of having to be pushed into lockers by the kid. They were friends now, but still. What Will had done for him, back before they'd known about the whole reincarnation deal, had been nothing short of heroic.

As far as Jen went, though, Miles _did_ have a funny feeling sometimes as of late that they had been better friends in their past life. In this one, they'd only crossed paths a handful of times, but she never said an unkind word to him; she was a lot like her ex-boyfriend, when it came to things like that. She wasn't _cruel_ to surly, secretly insecure, unpopular kids who, as Allie would have put it, spent their school days 'hiding behind their snark', she just didn't notice them most of the time and was polite to them whenever she did, like a blasé queen passing a subject on the road.

If the flashes of memory Miles had been having were accurate, if something wasn't just messing with his head, then Gwen (Jen) hadn't always been royalty. Part of her probably remembered subconsciously what it was like, to be common and stepped on, or overlooked, but being reincarnated as an upper middle-class cheerleader probably didn't make her a shoe-in for the world's next great philanthropist. In her little world, there was not much else (in this lifetime) aside from her popularity, Will, and Lance. Poor girl. But maybe, if she'd had it rough in her early days in Camelot, she deserved a respite now. One lifetime of frivolity. He couldn't grudge her that.

Will, on the other hands was a different riddle. The Arthur Miles had flashes of (the young prince, before he became king) was way more hot-headed. Reincarnation seemed to have mellowed him out the way most people just mellow with ordinary age.

These puzzles didn't bother Miles so much to figure out. He secretly _liked_ thinking about Arthur's court, and wondering. It was Allie that gave him trouble. She was Freya, he was certain of it. And he couldn't let himself admit what Freya had meant to him. Even with his patchy memory, he knew how he'd felt about her. Except he would never let himself open that can of worms. It was too risky, too confusing. He just wished he could at least remember what _happened_ to Freya, back in Camelot. He'd felt so close to remembering earlier, when he saw Allie on that raft, but something in his mind blocked it from his conscious thought afterward.

He was holding himself back, he knew he was, and he didn't think he was strong enough to force himself to stop doing so.

"I was just dropping off the homework for Lance," Jen told him, taking one hand off her bike's handlebars so that she could remove a piece of red hair that was stuck to her lip-gloss.

"How is he?"

"A little better," Jen said. "I brought some of my mom's chicken soup over as well." She added, "I didn't know you lived on this block, Miles."

"I don't," he said. "I was just visiting Allie."

Just then, a familiar girl jogged by. The same girl he'd hugged the night of the big game and he'd seen in the cafeteria the day before.

Miles smiled automatically, then caught himself. He probably should have answered at least one of her text messages. He had just been preoccupied with the whole 'being Merlin' thing as of late. And, also, sometimes he wondered if he was really as interested in her as he thought.

She _was _very pretty, though.

She noticed, and waved to him, same as she had in the cafeteria, but she didn't stop jogging.

"Her name's Nikki," Jen informed him, once the girl was out of ear-shot.

"Nikki," he repeated. _Kind of sad that it took me this long to learn her name, or even think of asking..._

"She's pretty, isn't she?" Jen teased, remembering how she'd made Miles blush in the cafeteria. She shrugged her shoulders. "For a band girl."

She was in band class? Yet another thing Miles hadn't known about her. "She's pretty for a cheerleader," he heard himself blurt out thoughtlessly. "Never mind a band girl."

For whatever reason, however, he didn't feel real embarrassed, saying that to Jen. Even when she looked at him with that same teasing expression still on her face. Because he had the feeling he'd said those same words before, or at least something similar.

Maybe even about the same girl.

What if Nikki was somebody from Camelot, too?

That would explain how she caught his attention that first time he saw her, at the party.

It was too bad _she _wasn't Freya...

No, he wouldn't think about that last bit.

Miles forced that out of his head. It didn't matter. Maybe she wasn't even anyone _important_ from Camelot. After all, they'd stopped Mordred, and she hadn't played any part in it. Then again, neither had Jen and Lance.

But important to the_ legend_ or not, she might be important to _him_. Some day. If he let her. If he could talk to her.

If he could stop thinking about Freya.


	3. Chapter 3

_Everything is so totally perfect_.

That was all Allie could think as she walked down the street, hand-in-hand with Will Wagner.

How had she come so far? From being just the new kid to being, not only an important part of an Arthurian prophecy, but also the girlfriend of the quarterback?

And while his being King Arthur meant her parents gawked at and fawned over him constantly, it also meant they trusted him with their lives, and more importantly _hers_. Which meant, unlike most girls lucky enough to have football player boyfriends (at least the ones she'd heard of, or read about in the worn paperback teen novels she picked up on occasion from the library, or saw on TV or whatever), her parents never grilled him about what time he was bringing her back or forbid her to attend a party at his house. Or even one not at his house.

So long as Will was with her, she could go anywhere she wanted.

Well, within reason, naturally.

Allie didn't think of her parents as crazy or overly lenient. She understood where they were coming from. No other guy on the _planet_ was likely to be as honorable and protective as the great _King Arthur _himself. But truth be told, Allie thought she would have fallen for Will even if he hadn't been Arthur. Even if her parents had been wrong in assuming it was him. He was kind of perfect. She thought Jen was pretty crazy to have cheated on him with Lance, quite frankly.

Lance was a nice guy. She'd even admit, if pressed, a _great_ guy. Allie completely understood why he and Will were such good friends. But compared to Will Wagner, Lance was like... Well, kind of like waffles with freezer burn.

Not that she was exactly _mad_ Jen hadn't turned out to be the right girl for Will. After all, if things hadn't ended between them, he wouldn't be with her now.

It was just, she hated the thought of anyone hurting Will. She knew it had to of majorly sucked for him to see his girlfriend and his best friend kissing via a rear-view mirror right before the game. They were _lucky_ Will hadn't taken it too hard. She couldn't imagine how much more painful it would have been for him if he and Jen had still been close when he discovered their betrayal.

She didn't hate Jen, even though she'd betrayed Will; she considered her a good friend in spite of that. Still, that didn't mean she understood her thinking. Lance wasn't interested in anything but football; Will, while on the surface, to some people, he might have _seemed_ the same, Allie knew he wanted to get into politics. Football, though he loved the game, was just a step in that direction, a rung on that ladder. And she whole-heartedly believed he'd make it all the way to president of the United States, too. She wanted to be there with him, every step of the way.

"Hey, Will?" Allie asked, suddenly wondering something.

"Yeah?"

"Has your stepbrother been treating you any differently at home, since..." Her voice trailed off slightly. "Since he told you he's part of the Order of the Bear?"

"Well, Marco doesn't try to make my life miserable as a cover-up to fool a certain former teacher of ours anymore," Will said. "He's kinda dropped the whole 'resentful stepbrother' act."

Allie shook her head. She'd figured that much. After all, she saw the guy all the time at school; he even ate lunch with them most days. Marco wasn't much of a bully anymore. She didn't think he'd still act like a jerk in private, either, not without a reason. But Marco had bowed at her that one time, right after they'd discovered she was the Lady of the Lake. He hadn't really done so since, but she couldn't help wondering if that was only because they were usually in public. "No, that's not what I meant. I mean, is he... Is he, like my parents? Does he bow at you and stuff?"

Will laughed, and hard, at that. "God, no! Thankfully not."

"So my parents are the only ones who fall all over you on a regular basis?"

"Nah, it's not _just _them. Marco had a few members from the Order over a couple days ago," Will confided in her. "They're pretty reserved, but they reminded me a lot of your parents."

"I bet," Allie teased, "if you weren't getting a football scholarship, they'd be willing to pay your college tuition." God forbid King Arthur not have enough money to get him into college and have to take a job waiting tables or something! "It must be _awful_."

He smirked. "Alright, it's sort of great."

"Just sort of?" She felt his grip tighten around her hand, squeezing it lightly.

"Well, you of all people understand how overwhelming it is," Will reminded her.

Allie nodded, agreeing. "That's true."

"Your parents are pretty awesome, though," Will said. "They're great together. And super nice. You shouldn't be embarrassed of them."

"I'm not always," she said quickly. "And I guess we_ are_ pretty lucky, them being the Arthurian junkies they are, that they haven't said anything about this not being how the story goes. The Lady of the Lake and Arthur were never really together. Not like this."

He stopped walking, leaned sideways, twisted his neck so that he was facing her, and kissed her. "We are now."

"Who says you can't re-write history?" breathed Allie, as he pulled away.

"Dare to be different." His smile widened, gazing at her.

"Wanna race?" She gestured at the path ahead of them.

"I feel like I could go three miles at shot."

"I feel like _five_," Allie countered challengingly.

That was another great thing about hanging out with Will; he was just as athletic and competitive as she was. There wasn't really anybody else she could go on runs to clear her head with.

Her dad, well, they'd tried that once (not pretty), but it was sort of a family joke now. Mr. Pennington kind of hated running; he'd only tried it that one time because his doctor told him he needed more exercise. Finally Allie's mom got tired of his coming home panting and whimpering about how every bone in his body was sore, took mercy on him, and bought the man a treadmill. Which, ironically, _Allie _used more than he ever did. Mrs. Pennington, at least every bit as obsessed with her studies-especially anything related to King Arthur-as her husband, mostly didn't notice. The thing would probably collect dust if Allie didn't get on it at least once a week. And, if she hadn't reminded them, they probably would have left it behind the last time they'd moved.

And _Miles_? He was a great friend, but running really wasn't _his_ thing either. Not to mention, that was how she'd found out he was a mild asthmatic, when he'd had to stop running and pull out an inhaler after barely a mile at a speed that, from Allie's viewpoint, wasn't much faster than a brisk jog. She never asked him to come running with her again after that. In short, her best friend really wasn't at the top of the list for invites to rock-climbing parties.

But before she could even make sure her shoes were tied (it was kind of thanks to Miles that she'd gotten into a major habit of always checking that) and declare herself ready to start the race, she heard dogs barking, followed by familiar voices.

"Listen, just because I'm in the Order of the Bear and we're friends now, doesn't mean I couldn't still kick your a-" Marco, stopped short, right in front of them now. "Allie!" He causally put what looked like a small plastic trash-bag used to pick up doggie-doo behind his back. "Didn't see you there. Hey, Will."

With him, was Miles, attempting to keep hold of a multi-dog leash. The odds weren't really in his favor.

Speak of the devil, thought Allie.

"Wow, Miles, I didn't know you had..." Will's forehead crinkled as he attempted to count the barking animals at the end of the leash. "Uh, six dogs."

Miles frowned. "I don't. I volunteer to walk Avalon High teaching staff's dogs every other weekend."

"Why?" Allie asked.

"It's for extra credit." He shrugged his shoulders. "For some reason it qualifies as an extracurricular activity."

"Figures." Allie thought she should have known.

"It was this or join a school sport." He paused for a moment, his nose wrinkled. "I flipped a coin."

"Yeah, apparently they don't consider Chess Club an actual sport," Marco put in, not as unkindly as he would have said it if he were still pretending to be mean. "Go figure."

"So why are _you _doing it, Marco?" Will had to know.

"Well, turns out, getting bad grades on purpose in most of his classes so Mr. Moore wouldn't guess what he was up to finally took its toll," Miles explained.

Marco sighed. "I have to boost my grades a little."

"A _little_?" Miles scoffed, incredulous.

"I've got a tutor," he said, choosing to ignore Miles for the time being. "He's very professional; he actually made this record of how many As he's gotten dating all the way back to middle-school."

Will tried not to laugh. "He counts As? What kind of nut counts As?"

Allie nudged him in the ribs, coughed pointedly, and gestured over at Miles with her chin.

"Oh, right." He winced. "Sorry, Miles. No offense."

"None taken."

Marco had to reach over and take the leash from Miles, shoving the plastic bag at him. "Here, _you_ pick up the poop."

"Marco!"

"I _was_ going to do it, but you clearly can't keep a grip on the leash, Miles. Fair is fair."

"Shh..." Miles held up a hand (now that his hands were mostly free).

"Why? Do you hear something?" Marco asked.

"No, I just want you to be quiet," Miles told him.

Marco took a step towards him, the faintest hint of a glare in his eyes.

"_Kidding_," he said. "I really did think I heard something for a minute there." More specifically, some_one_, but he knew he had to be wrong. The person whose voice he thought he heard for a second there couldn't possibly be here. And even if he _was_, speaking at that volume, there was no way Miles should have been able to hear him unless he was close enough to _see_ him as well. Which, of course, he didn't. See him, that is.

A girl who was on the cheerleading squad with Jen came up to them, holding a small stack of purple-colored papers in her hands.

Nope, definitely _not _who Miles thought he'd heard. He exhaled a sharp breath of relief.

"Hey, Will," she said brightly, holding out one of the papers to him. It was an invite to a party at her house. "Come to my party." She handed one to Allie. "You too."

"Thanks." Allie didn't really know the girl, but she was happy, as any teenager would be, to be included.

"Marco!" She handed him an invite. "Of course we'll be expecting you."

Marco muttered something about how he might go if Will did and gave him a ride.

That was when she noticed Miles standing there. He'd had to grab onto the leash again so that Marco could take the invitation, and one of the dogs had pulled too hard, knocking him knee-first into a very stinky present it left behind.

"Uh..." she said, like she couldn't remember his name.

"Miles," he reminded her. "We've been in the same class since second grade. You ate paste and got sent home sick on the first day."

She blinked. "Yeah, whatever." She held out an invite. "You're in Biology class with Rodd Muckinfuss, right?"

Miles dimly recalled a kid named Rodd, both in the aforementioned Biology class, and, ironically, in second grade. "I think so. Hey, isn't he the one who _dared _you to eat paste?"

She shrugged, wrinkling her nose. "Just give this to him, okay?" She shoved the invite into his hand.

He couldn't hold it and the leash at the same time, so it kind of ended up on the ground, just narrowly missing the smushed dog poop.

Handing the leash back to Marco, Miles muttered, "Well, that was inconsiderate."

"I'm not going if you're not invited," Allie said firmly. "No way."

Miles shook his head. "Don't be stupid, Allie, of course you are. Will is."

Will shrugged. "I don't have to. I'm okay with skipping."

"A football star skipping a party because a nerd can't go," Miles echoed, making a face. "Are you hearing how unbelievably bizarre that sounds?"

Will lowered his voice. "Arthur go to a party without Merlin?"

"Merlin would hate it anyway," Miles retorted. "Go. Take Marco and Allie. I'm sure Jen will be there, too. Lance, probably not, unless he's over the flu, but everyone else you know at school will."

"Yeah, but not you," Allie pointed out.

"You don't need me to hold your hand," Miles snorted. "What am I, your mother?"

Allie frowned, not sure if she should feel insulted or still just plain sorry for Miles being left out. No one really seemed to understand how special a guy Miles was. Except for their fellow reincarnations of the Arthurian court, naturally. But Allie still had the feeling they kind of took him for granted a lot. Even Will sometimes. Even maybe herself.

"Okay, fine," Allie gave it, sighing absently as if it weren't a big deal. "I'll go."

"What about that race?" Will asked, trying to lighten up the situation. "Still feel like going five miles?"

"Yeah, you're on," Allie said.

It was then that Miles heard the voice again. Not some preppy school-girl's, not Marco's, but the one he'd thought impossible.

"Did you hear that?"

But Allie and Will were nothing but a cloud of dust kicked up by their sneakers now, so it was only Marco who looked at him funny, indicating that, nope, he hadn't heard a thing.

Miles couldn't deny it any longer, though. He'd heard it. And he knew who it was. Mordred.

Mr. Moore must have been let out of jail. He might not have been in their line of vision at the moment, but Miles was sure now that he must be in range. He was hearing his voice in his head. Something told him he wouldn't be hearing it at a great distance. Mr. Moore had to be close. Spying on them, probably.

Why can't he just _get_ a _life_? Miles thought, exasperated.

_I _heard_ that, Emrys_, Mordred's voice in his head hissed. _And, I _plan_ on getting a life: Arthur's_.

Miles shuddered. It was creepy, his thoughts not being his own. Even creepier, somehow, than seeing glimpses of the future or his past life as Merlin.

"We're being watched," he whispered to Marco.

"Mr. Moore's here somewhere."

It took Marco a few minutes, and he had help from Miles making guesses when necessary, but he finally figured out that Mr. Moore was in a parked ice cream truck with a pair of binoculars.

Taking the tied bag of dog poo, Marco hurled it like a bomb. And it sailed right into the open ice cream truck window, distracting Mr. Moore.

Miles had another idea. Smirking, he tapped a little kid, who happened to be standing nearby holding a balloon, on the shoulder. "Hey, did you hear? That ice cream man's giving out free samples."

Instantly, the kid and ten of his closest little friends ambushed the truck and Marco and Miles took the dogs and quickly made their way out of Mordred's range.

Miles didn't want his former teacher tapping into any more of his thoughts. It was more unsettling than having your computer hacked and your most important files stolen.

Much later, several hours after he had dropped the dogs off with the teachers and gone home, Miles found himself still wondering about Mr. Moore.

Anyone could tell the man was insane, even if they didn't know-couldn't possibly understand-that he was Mordred, every bit as intent on bringing Arthur down as his mad raving implied. So why was he on the loose? He didn't have his job anymore, that was obvious, but surely the police would warrant a better punishment than a job loss and a future selling snot-nosed kids ice cream bars for...

For _what_ exactly?

Yeah, Mr. Moore might have been raving mad, might have claimed a teenage kid was threatening his life with a plastic sword and then gone right ahead and told anyone who would listen that that same kid was Arthur Pendragon reborn into modern-day America, but how long could they really hold him behind bars for _that_? They probably just thought he'd graded one too many papers and cracked under the pressure of being an educator or whatever. They could consider his becoming a productive member of society again a possibility, so long as he didn't work with kids, or anything red and sharp, like, say, a grading pen.

But Mordred could never be safe to have around. Miles knew that. Mordred hated Arthur. And for reasons Miles was still trying to understand, Mordred hated _him_ too. He wondered what he'd done to the guy in their past life for his hatred to be so intense. He could practically feel _heat_ pricking his brain from its intensity when he'd heard Mordred's thoughts.

Well, there was no use antagonizing over it.

Miles decided, since he had no homework left to do (not even extra credit stuff), he would fix himself a snack and watch the Discovery Channel, or maybe Jepopardy. Allie's parents watched Jeopardy every night. She found it annoying for whatever reason, but he kind of envied her for having a family like that. But, then, Miles had his mom, and he loved her more than practically anyone else in the world, even if she couldn't always be home. Like today, for instance.

Will never exactly said so, but Miles got the idea that _he _envied Allie's caring parents, too. He didn't talk much about his own family, and Miles figured he had good reason for that. If his dad in this life was anything like the Uther Pendragon he could dimly recall, it was no wonder the otherwise perfect Will Wagner didn't bring up home much. The only time Miles, or anyone else from school, had ever really been over Will's house was during parties he threw occasionally. He wondered if Marco's mom was nice. He couldn't think of anyone she might correspond to from Camelot. Except maybe Igraine. But she was Arthur's _real_ mother, not his stepmother.

Miles opened the fridge and helped himself to some baloney, cheese, and whatever other cold-cuts he could pile into a big sandwich. He could never eat as much as a football player, but for someone as schoolwork-obsessed as he was, he sure knew how to down a meal like a jock when he was hungry enough. (It was a guy thing.)

It was getting kind of dark out. Partly, that was because it was late. It was later than 8:15; that was what the clock read, but only because it was digital and the batteries were dying, making it run slow. It probably wasn't _that_ far behind, though. It was likely only around 8:30 or 8:45, quarter to nine. But there was also the faint hint of a storm starting, or at least some heavy rain. The clouds, the little that could be seen of them through the window, illuminated by the light on the back porch, were pretty dense. One or two even crackled with spurts of bluish-purple lightning.

The phone rang.

Thinking it might be his mom, Miles answered it. "Hello?" His mouth was full and he swallowed quickly, gulping down the bite of sandwich he'd taken just before the phone started ringing.

"Miles?"

It wasn't his mom's voice. It was Allie's. And something was wrong; he could tell, her voice sounded funny.

"Allie?"

At first he thought he heard static, then he realized the line was clear. Allie was just crying.

"Allie, what is it? What's wrong?"

Swallowing a sob, she managed, "Miles, can you come and get me?"


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: To PaRaM0rE-0394, thank you so much for your review. I tried to reply but it wouldn't let me because you had private messaging disabled. But I wanted to say thanks anyway. Also, I was going to answer your question about the character Nikki and who she's supposed to be in this story, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone else who may be reading this (I dunno if all that many people _are_ reading this to begin with, considering only you and one other reviewer have left any comments, but just to be safe, I'm going to keep my author's notes as spoiler-free as possible). So I will just say that I did leave a fairly big hint as to who she is at the end of chapter 2 (think 'Poisoned Chalice'). Thanks again, hope you and everyone (_any_one?) else reading this enjoys this next chapter, too!**

By the time Miles showed up he had broken a number of relatively minor traffic laws, most of which he was unaware (he hadn't really _noticed_ what color the light he'd driven through was; and if a few people cussed him out and honked their horns, he barely registered their actions), but the important thing was that he'd made it there.

He still wasn't sure what was wrong. Allie hadn't been able to tell him over the phone; when she wasn't crying so hard he couldn't understand a word she was saying, she sounded dazed, like she couldn't think straight.

It didn't matter, though. She was his friend and she needed him, and that was all he needed to know.

Well, that and _where_ she was, obviously.

Which, unfortunately, in hastily assuring her he was on his way, telling her to hang in there, and quickly ending the call and grabbing the car keys, he'd kind of sort of forgotten to ask.

Oops.

For about half a minute he'd sat in the driver's seat, starting at the keys he had just turned in the ignition. It hit him suddenly that he had no idea where he was supposed to pick up Allie.

"_Great_..." he muttered sarcastically to himself, gripping the steering-wheel. "How are you going to figure _this_ one out, Merlin wizard superman?"

That was when he'd remembered something he'd done before, with Allie's encouragement. That night they'd stopped Mordred, he'd _made _himself have a vision of where Will was.

It'd hurt really, really bad, but it had done the job; it had saved Will Wagner.

Of course, Miles hadn't been _having_ as many glimpses of the future lately; he was starting to wonder if Allie's haphazard theory of him-or at least his _mind_, maybe-living through time backwards wasn't so far off. Because he had been seeing more of the past, and less and less of the future.

But the danger wasn't gone yet. They were in more trouble than ever. Mr. Moore was back, and something was wrong with Allie. This was no time for the stupid flashes that had plagued him since he was little to just crap out on him.

So he'd done it. Knowing it would hurt, he'd concentrated, forcing it to happen. He needed to know where she was. It hurt worse than the last time he'd forced it, but somehow he had suspected it would, partly because his mind was too anxious about Allie to clear on its own, and he'd prepared himself for the pain. The vision had to hit him pretty hard to have a worthwhile effect, one he could see and recall. It was so bad he almost passed out; he'd panted and rested his forehead against the top of the steering-wheel. Then he'd forced himself to sit up and just floored the gas pedal.

She was in an alleyway, nearby where the house the party she was supposed to be at with Will, Marco, and Jen was located. He'd only seen her for a second there, but she looked really scared. Not so much like she was in immediate danger, not like she was fighting, more like she was frightened of something that had happened.

She looked like she was in shock.

As soon as Miles got out of the car, he made a dash for the alleyway.

Allie was sitting with her back against a brick wall, her knees pulled to her chest, her blond hair loose and hanging in front of her face. She jumped up when she heard his footsteps.

Miles noticed she was shivering and took off the jacket he barely even remembered putting on when he ran out the door. Reaching over, he tried to put the jacket over her shoulders.

She recoiled and stepped back.

"Allie?"

"Miles." She breathed a sigh of relief. In the dark, she hadn't recognized him or seen what he had in his hands.

"You look cold."

She nodded but didn't take the jacket he was still holding out to her.

"What happened?"

"I-" she began, sounding as if she might start crying all over again. "I didn't mean to."

"Didn't mean to what?" Miles asked, his eyebrows lowered in confusion.

Before Allie could try to tell him, a flash of lightning lit up the alleyway, and he saw (or nearly saw) for himself.

On the other side of the dark green metal dumpster to their left, was a ghost-white, obviously lifeless, hand. Dollars to donuts, it was more than _just _a hand. There was also some blood on the lower half of Allie's shirt, and dried on the side of one of her hands.

"I didn't mean to hurt him," Allie sobbed. "I just went outside for a minute and he pulled me back here. He attacked me, I thought he was going to kill me. I was just trying to fight him off. I didn't know he'd..."

"Who was it?"

Allie swallowed, shrugging. "A stranger. I never saw him before. Except... I had that feeling, kind of like when I first met Will, like I'd met him..."

"In your past life," Miles finished.

There was one major difference, though. She'd liked Will at once; this man, straight from the start, she had been frightened of and disgusted by.

"I didn't mean to kill him," Allie repeated.

"Allie, it was self-defense," Miles reminded her.

She shook violently, clearly still terrified.

Miles went over to where the body was. Another flash of lightning showed him the dead man. It wasn't someone he knew from a past life, that much he felt strangely sure of. Though, he wasn't near as sure that, in said past life, he hadn't known _of _him.

Somebody, he thought, killed the pitiful creep in that life, too, when I was Merlin, and told me about it.

"Whoa," he muttered down at the corpse, shuddering. This was the closest he'd ever been to a dead body. "That's effing creepy."

"Can you just get me out of here?" Allie asked, her voice weak.

Miles nodded. Maybe, if things weren't so strange, if he were just a very little less freaked out, he would have thought to call the police, or an adult of some kind. But somehow it didn't feel right. Allie hadn't meant to hurt him; he'd just attacked her out of nowhere. And if the police came and didn't believe her, or even just tried to take her to the station for a statement... No, Miles didn't think she could handle that right now. She was too frazzled at the moment. She needed someone to take care of her, to get her back on her feet, emotionally as well as physically, not to be grilled over the events. She was too shaky. This was too much for her.

Allie was a strong person, but Miles, being her best friend, was well aware of her limitations.

"Yeah, come on." He reached for her hand. "I'll take you to the car."

It wasn't until Miles had been driving for nearly four minutes that Allie thought to lean over and ask, "Where are we going?" She realized suddenly that she was wearing her seat-belt, even though she had no memory of clicking it in herself or of Miles doing it for her when he held the door open for her. She had a strange feeling he'd done it by magic somehow. By some need to protect her, he'd caused the thing to buckle by itself, as he got into the driver seat, and she'd simply been too worked up to notice.

"My house?" Miles offered. "I can call your parents and tell them you're okay."

Allie nodded. That sounded good. For some reason, she didn't feel like being home tonight. She felt safer with Miles anyway. He'd come and gotten her, and nothing else mattered. She was totally safe now; nothing was going to hurt her.

"Hey, Allie?"

"Yes, Miles?"

"Can I ask you something?"

"What?"

He paused for a moment. "Why didn't you call Will?"

What he really meant was, "Where was Will during all of this?" and that didn't slip by her; shook up as she was, she still picked up on that. "He didn't know I left the party," Allie said quietly, looking down at her lap. The side of the seat-belt dug into her neck a bit. The deep pressure felt soothing, harsh and real, but not painful. It was a protective kind of chafing. "I tried to call his cell right before I called you, but he didn't pick up. I think his phone was on silent."

When they got to his house, Miles got out of the car and opened the door for Allie again.

Thunder rumbled over their heads. Miles looked up. They were going to have that rain any minute. Lucky thing he hadn't missed Allie's call, or she might, poor thing, have ended up shivering in that alleyway covered in blood and rainwater. Not that he would ever let that happen. Somehow, he knew, no matter what, he would have figured out she needed him. Phone call or no phone call.

He thought for a moment, how odd it was, that when they'd first met he hadn't wanted to be her friend at all. Or at least, he'd pretended he hadn't. Mostly that had just been because he'd known she was going to be popular. And as a rule popular kids never stayed friends with nerds. But those kids were different from them-and from Will, Jen, Lance, and Marco-they didn't have a friendship that was centuries old. The thing was, he'd rejected Allie's friendship originally, not even wanting to be partners with her on a school assignment.

Now, though, he thought about her all the time, he cared about her more than anyone, and he didn't know what he'd do if any harm came to her.

Those last few thoughts struck a cord in his mind, as he went through the motions of locking the car, walking up the drive, and fishing in his pockets for the key to the front door. (Usually, he knew exactly which pocket he put his keys in, he had just been in such a hurry to get to Allie he hadn't paid attention this time.) Miles dimly recalled Will saying something similar about Jen. But that was ridiculous. Will had never spoken to him about Jen. He had to be wrong. He had to be losing it. Except, then he realized, maybe it wasn't Will he was remembering saying that; or at least, not Will Wagner as he was in this life. Arthur, back in Camelot, had said it. And about Gwen. Who, of course, was now Jen, and with Lance (Lancelot), not Will (Arthur).

There it was. He found the key and stuck it in the lock.

They made it into the house just in time. The rain came pouring down the second they were both inside.

Allie shivered again. "Where are you parents?"

"My mom's not home," Miles said. "I never really knew my dad."

Allie blinked, almost uncomprehendingly, pretty surprised he had never told her that before, and also a little ashamed that she'd never thought to ask.

"Does your mom know?" Allie asked. "About you being Merlin?"

"Not exactly," Miles told her. "She knows about my seeing the future, but that's just because I didn't know how to keep my mouth shut as a little kid. When I got older, I realized how scared she got when I told her things in advance, and when I clutched my head in pain and all that good stuff, so I tried to act like it didn't happen anymore."

"But she knew?"

Miles smiled. "Of course. Saw right through it. She's my mom; it's hard to hide anything from her, even if she's not always around." He added, "But I couldn't tell her about the whole Merlin thing."

"Why not?"

"She'd probably have me committed."

"It _would_ be pretty hard to fulfill prophecies from a mental hospital," Allie had to admit.

"Pretty much."

"Your house is really nice." Allie took in the large high-tech kitchen, complete with stainless steel sub-zero fridge, and wide open-space rooms. Somehow she'd never pictured Miles living like this; he seemed to like the cozy, simple, lived-in, curl-up-and-study-until-you-black-out type of areas best. Then again, since it was his mom's house, he probably didn't have much say in the matter.

"Yeah, it's weird," Miles said. "I kind of remember being poor, when I was Merlin. I actually remember that clearer than a lot of things. I remember sleeping on a floor, before I moved to Camelot. But, here, my mom's always had money. Sometimes, I think maybe my dad-whoever he is-sends it and she doesn't want me to know for some reason."

"Don't you get lonely?"

He cocked his head at her. "Never used to. Then you started talking to me at school. Thanks a lot." He fake-glared at her.

She laughed.

Miles laughed, too. He got up, went into another room located down the spacious hallway, and came back with a plaid blanket. Putting it over Allie's shoulders, he said, "You're still shaking."

"It's because you made me laugh."

"Liar."

She smiled at him. "Thanks, Miles."

_Boom_! Suddenly the whole place went dark, the lights gone out in the storm.

Allie and Miles let out a simultaneous yelp of sickly surprise.

But Miles was only fazed for about a second, because he felt his way across the living room and into the kitchen, where he knew there were candles under the sink. He had a feeling they were out of matches, but considering he'd almost burned Allie to a crisp on her raft not too long ago, he figured he could make do without.

"Watch out," Miles warned Allie, as he set the candles down on the coffee-table. He hoped he didn't accidentally set the table and the couch on fire, too. His powers could be tricky.

Allie pulled herself as far back as the couch would allow, half-expecting the candles and their small metal holders to go up in flames and then finally, if they were lucky, fizzle down to normal candlelight. But, instead, candles lit as if they'd all been touched by the tip of an invisible flaming match at the same time.

Miles smirked proudly.

They sat back on the couch for a while, looking dimly at the candles, wondering when the rain was going to let up.

"When the power comes back on, I'll call your parents."

"Okay," Allie replied distantly.

"Do you want me to call Will, too? He's probably noticed you're missing by now, if he's ever going to." He glanced over at Allie; even in the poor lighting, he could tell she'd gone pretty pale. "Unless,_ you_ wanted to talk to him, I could just hand you the phone."

"No, Miles, please don't."

"Why?"

"I don't know how to tell him about what happened." She was still scared.

"But you told me."

"You're practically psychic, Miles, it's not the same thing. I had the weirdest feeling, like you already knew. Like I'd told you before and you didn't hate me for it, that calling you would be okay. I was almost relieved when Will didn't pick up."

"You knew I'd take care of you."

"I wish you didn't have to," Allie whispered. "I like it better when things are the other way around."

"You don't have to feel like you owe me anything," Miles told her.

"I just don't like being scared."

"You don't have to be," Miles insisted gently. "It's going to be okay, I promise."

Allie forced herself to swallow down the lump in her throat and nod. "I know. Everything's going to be fine."

"Hey," he said, hoping to cheer her up. "Look at this." He focused on the little flames on the candles, lifted his hand, and caused them to rise up off the wicks, floating in the air. "You were right; sometimes being different _is_ great."

Allie gazed at the tiny flames. "They're so beautiful."

Miles lowered his hand and the flames went back onto the wicks. "You know you're the reincarnation of the Lady of the Lake and you _still_ don't realize how special you are, do you?"

Allie felt herself blush.

Lighting flashed in the window, striking uncomfortably nearby.

She and Miles found they were sitting closer together, having jumped at the flash of bright purple-red light in the window.

They weren't thinking, when they did what they did next. They didn't remember Will or Nikki or Jen or Marco, or anybody else, for that matter. They barely even remembered who they were. All they knew, for that split-second, was that they were together and happy, and safe and sound. There was a vague sense of happiness and contentment, little else.

Miles leaned forward and kissed Allie on the lips.

Allie returned the gesture, feeling as if this had happened before, though, of course, there was no _way_ it had. She would have remembered something like that, she was sure. There _were_ some stories about Merlin and the Lady of the Lake...being, well, more than just friends...but they had to be wrong, or about a _different_ Lady of the Lake. Yes, that was it; definitely some other lake-lady.

They had to be wrong; they had to have gotten her mixed up.

It could have happened so easily, the mix-up. After all, they hadn't known the Lady of the Lake was a Druid; and neither would _she_ have, if it weren't for Miles and his visions. And her name had been Freya, not Nimueh, or Vivian. If those other people had existed, one of _them_ must have been Merlin's love interest.

Miles did not share her doubt. Because of his visions, he knew the truth. That was the main thing he had been hesitant to tell her about. Merlin had fallen in love with the Druid girl Freya who eventually became the Lady of the Lake. Nimueh was somebody else entirely, and from the bits he'd put together, Miles wasn't certain he'd seen eye-to-eye with her; something she'd done, or he'd done-or both.

It hit them both suddenly, what they were doing, and they broke apart.

Allie was the first to pull away, totally shocked. "Miles..."

"Allie, I'm sorry."

"I'm...with...Will..." she said feebly.

"I know." He closed his eyes and took a deep, heavy breath. "It's _fine_, Allie. Let's just pretend like it didn't happen, alright?"

From his surly expression, Allie could have never guessed that, really, pretending it never happened, was the _last_ thing Miles wanted.

It was only for _her_, for what he knew right away _she_ wanted, that he did.


	5. Chapter 5

Jen leaned back on the arm of the leather couch, sprawled out, glancing at the ceiling. She closed her eyes. "I just wonder," she sighed, "what in the world I'm doing with my life, you know? I mean, I love my boyfriend Lance, I really do, but there's always that, you know, _black spot_ on our relationship, because of what happened between me and Will. I guess part of me is always a little afraid _we'll_ drift apart, too. I mean, Will wasn't even really sad when he found out about me and Lance. I didn't _want_ to break his heart, obviously; that's why I took so long to tell him, I didn't want everything in his life to fall apart. I love Will. I can't not love Will. But I hadn't realized he felt so, well, _distant _from me, and not just cuz of the whole Lance thing. And I've known him since first grade. We went out for almost three years. I just wonder if I've made the right choices in life. I need someone to tell me if I've been living right."

"Um, Miss?"

"Yeah?" She opened her eyes and lifted her head.

"I don't mean to be rude, I like totally feel your pain, but, uh, this kind of goes beyond my qualifications as a Starbucks Employee." The guy in the black shirt and green smock she'd been telling her life's problems to held out her order, neatly packaged in its Styrofoam cup, for her to take.

"Oh, sorry." Jen smiled apologetically and sat up, taking the caffe latte from his hand.

"Yeah, best of luck, with, um, everything." With that, he fast-walked out of the sitting area and disappeared behind the counter.

Jen's cell's ringtone (a speeded-up version of the song What I Like About You) went off. "Ooh, incoming call." She put the latte down on the nearest coffee table and fished her phone out of her purse. According to the caller ID photo that popped up, it was Will. Hitting 'accept call', she blurted, "You find her?" into the receiver. On account of Allie had sort of gone missing from the party last night.

Jen wasn't particularly worried. Not because she was mean or insensitive or anything like that, more like she just figured Allie probably got bored and found a ride home or whatever. She hadn't exactly been having the time of her life there, either. It was kind of boring without Lance, and Will, when he wasn't talking to some random person from Avalon High they barely knew who simply _had_ to come up and talk to their favorite star quarterback/class president/homecoming king, he spent the whole time with Allie. Which only made sense, since she was his girlfriend now, not Jen. She did wonder though why Allie hadn't just asked _Will_ to take her home. He probably would have been more than happy to.

"Yeah, she's fine," Will said, sounding tired.

"She got a ride home?"

"Miles came and got her."

"See? I told you there was nothing to worry about."

"That's what Miles said, too," Will told her. "He sounded funny, though."

"Funny?" Jen crinkled her forehead. "Funny, like _how_, exactly?"

"Like there was something he didn't want to tell me," Will explained. "Miles is a really bad liar."

Jen snorted. "I kinda noticed. It's a good thing he usually doesn't have anything worth keeping a secret."

Well, aside from the fact that he's the reincarnation of Merlin, anyway, thought Will. He was sitting on the bench near the school's football field, eating half a turkey sub Marco left in the fridge, while he talked to Jen on the phone. "I'm just worried about Allie, she seems kind of..." _Fragile_, maybe_? _

"I'm sure she's fine, Will," Jen said cheerfully. "Hey, did you invite her to come sailing with you, me, and Marco this afternoon? Lance might come, too. He called me earlier, said he's feeling a little better."

"That's great, Jen. I've missed hanging out with Lance. But I don't think Allie's coming."

"Why not?"

"Well, I asked if she wanted to, and she said she was really tired so maybe next time."

Okay, that was a little weird. "Do you think you should go over there and check on her?" Jen wondered out loud.

"I offered," Will said. "She said she wanted to be alone."

"It was kind of a stupid party," Jen said supportively. "Maybe she really _is_ just tired from it."

At that exact point in time, Allie was in her room, curled up in a fetal position on her bed, looking at the wall. The window was to her back, and most of her covers were kicked on the floor, except for one knitted green blanket that was sort of half-wrapped around her knee.

Everything felt so completely and totally _wrong_. She kept thinking of that man she'd killed. She knew it wasn't her fault (Miles sure told her so enough times), but that didn't make the knowledge that she was responsible for his being dead any easier. With Miles cheering her up with magic tricks, like making candlelight float, it hadn't seemed real. She'd been too dazed last night for any of it to be real. Except, surprisingly, for that kiss. _That _had felt real, much as she wished it hadn't. She didn't want that. Not with Miles. And not now, when everything was resting on her shoulders. The burden was so heavy she almost felt like _she_, and not Jen and Will, had been troubled royalty in a past life.

Now she was home, upstairs, alone. She'd told her parents she just wanted to take a nap when Miles dropped her off at the house around nine or ten in the morning, and she hadn't bothered coming back downstairs for lunch.

"Allie."

A familiar voice. Miles. She opened her eyes, took in nothing but the wall again, and closed them back up. "What are you doing here?"

"I came back to check on you. Why aren't you going sailing with Will?"

"I feel so tired," she said softly.

"Then you should get up," Miles said.

"Don't feel like it, Miles." She pulled her knees closer to her stomach, feeling the single blanket tighten slightly around her kneecap. If it were a just a very little tighter, she bet it would have cut off her circulation. Not that she cared. "I just want to be alone right now."

"That's a lie, isn't it?" He knew her too well.

"Can you please just go away?" she whispered, almost hoarsely. "I'll see you at school tomorrow."

"Come on," he insisted. "Get up."

"No."

"Allie, if you don't get up, I will use the water bucket."

"_What_ water bucket?" Allie snorted. Her fingertips gripped the side of her pillow case, stroking the ruffled edge.

Miles did something that made a sloshing sound.

Allie's eyes shot open and she sat up, only to find that Miles didn't actually have a water bucket; he was just making the _sounds_ of one, presumably with magic. "Miles!" She reached behind her, grabbed her pillow again, and threw it at him. But she couldn't help it; she immediately started laughing.

Miles laughed, too. Then he bit down on his lower lip to steady himself. "So what would you usually be doing right now, if this were just a normal day?"

Allie folded her arms under her chest. "Um, I don't know. Checking the pool's filter basket to make sure no frogs are stuck in there?"

"Then that's exactly what you're going to do right now," Miles said. His voice indicated he wasn't giving her a choice.

Groaning, Allie pulled herself up off the bed. She rolled her eyes. Miles could be such a pain in the butt sometimes!

Noticing she was wearing baggy PJ pants and a long-sleeved purple T-shirt, he added, "Get dressed first."

Cocking her head, Allie gave him a look. "You mind?"

"No." He shrugged absently, apparently not getting it. Then, catching on, his eyes widened and he blurted, "Oh, sorry!"

"Yeah." Allie smirked tightly. "Thanks."

"Okay, but for the record, I'm staying right outside the door, and if you go back to bed, I'll be in here again in under five minutes. So don't think you can get rid of me that easy."

"_Goodbye_, Miles," she insisted, glancing at the door pointedly.

"See you in five minutes."

True to his word, he was right outside the door when she opened it exactly two and a half minutes later, dressed and ready to check the filter basket. She forced herself not to think of what people would say if they knew she'd killed a man last night and was all causally checking filter baskets today. If somebody besides Miles knew and could see her now. Like, maybe: '_Look at her, pulling half-dead frogs out of there, not even a single sign of remorse on her face! How _can_ she be so heartless?'_

No, Allie thought to herself, concentrate on walking down the stairs. Notice the railing. Notice Miles walking behind you with loud footsteps like a freaking elephant's. Notice anything that will keep you from thinking about last night. One foot in front of the other, hand gripping the rail. The clock downstairs is chiming.

Allie wasn't used to checking the filter with someone hovering over her, watching. But at least it was just Miles.

Something from inside the basket hissed warningly. Allie shuddered, pulling her hand away and jumping back. "Okay, frogs are one thing, but I fully draw the limit at touching anything that can send fatal poison shooting through my veins." Over her shoulder, towards the house, she called, "Dad, there's a snake in the filter basket!"

"So?" Mr. Pennington called back from where he was standing with the sliding door partly opened, drinking what was probably his fourth cup of coffee that day. "What do you want me to do about it?"

"Get it out!"

"No way," he said. "I'm not touching any snake."

It was no good asking _Miles_, Allie figured. He was quite a bit like her dad when it came to things like that. He would eat dirt (heck, he'd fail a _test_!) before he'd touch a snake. She wished Will were here. Then, at the same time, she didn't. She didn't want him right then. She was too scared, still, to face him about last night. And maybe it was about more than just the fact that she'd killed someone, when it came to Will. She needed time to think. And somehow she couldn't do so with him-or, annoyingly,_ without_ him. Oh, who was she fooling? She didn't know _what_ she wanted! Now back to the freaky snake-in-the-filter-basket problem!

Miles grimaced at the fanged reptile glaring up at him. He hated snakes. If it jumped out, he would probably either run screaming or cut its head off on scared impulse. Or maybe there was another way, without provoking Mr. Snakey down there.

"I could try to use magic on it," he offered.

"You mean, like, make it disappear or something?" Allie asked.

"Well, I'm not sure if I know how to make it _disappear_," Miles explained. He knew he was getting the hang of working with _fire_, at least. "But, hey, fried snake's supposed to be like a delicacy somewhere, right?"

"Oh, don't _hurt_ it, Miles!" Allie couldn't stand to see another living thing die right in front of her, especially not _because of _her. "Here." She finally gathered her wits and found a forked branch, lifting the snake out that way.

Miles yelped (in a pretty high-pitched tone) when the snake was lifted out, still hissing. Allie only managed to half-swallow her giggle at the look on his face. But the snake was okay; she personally didn't think it was all that scary once she'd actually pulled it out and seen how scared it was. It was only a scared, confused creature, not unlike herself. She lowered the branch to let it go and it slithered away.

Even though she wasn't really afraid of it anymore, she still kind of hoped it didn't come back.

"So, after cleaning the filter," Miles pressed, "what would you do? On a completely normal day."

"I don't know." Allie shrugged. "Go running?" Then she remembered this was _Miles_ she was talking to. "Oh, no, no..." She shook her head. "Forget I said that."

"I'll forget the running bit," Miles said, "but you're going to the park."

"What? Why?"

"Fresh air, annoying people to mock, kids flying kites and sticking gum to the back of unsanitary wooden benches, old men shaking their canes in rage telling teenagers to stop loitering and get a job... How can you go wrong?"

"You're so _weird_, Miles."

"Very original, Allie." He rolled his eyes. "And this is the first time you've noticed?"

She smiled. "Okay, I'll go."

Meanwhile, Mr. Moore had had some kids whip half-eaten ice cream cones at his head, a circling hawk poo on the windshield of the truck, almost gotten into a wreck driving to the curb across from the park, and an old guy wearing a fedora who wanted just a cone (with no actual ice cream _in_ it) so he could feed it to the ducks or pigeons or whatever vermin of the fowl variety he'd been making friends with, spat at him when he charged him full price.

In short, it had been one lousy day.

Now he was talking to some middle-aged lady who was ordering an ice cream sandwich for her nephew.

"I used to work with kids, actually. At a high school," he told the lady. "Then I got fired because of a really..._unfortunate_...misunderstanding. The board of education takes every little complaint so seriously nowadays." Apparently, shouting out that it was your destiny to destroy a student, claiming that same student was the reincarnation of King Arthur, and being dragged off school-grounds by the police was frowned upon. Who knew?

"Uh-huh," the woman replied nonchalantly, rummaging through her purse for change.

"Hey..." Mr. Moore picked up his binoculars. He was sure that idiot across the street, Ralph: the hot dog guy, had customers.

Unlike himself, Ralph really _was_ a nutter. He thought he was Superman (or was it Spiderman? Batman?), and they'd had to take the same mandatory therapy classes. It sickened him that he, Mordred, was, thanks to this lousy 'enlightened' time period, on the same working level as a mentally challenged bum who lived in his mother's basement; who, when he wasn't selling his questionable hot dogs, went around humming what Moore could only assume was meant to be his own theme music.

If only that meddling Emrys hadn't called back the staff, he might have won and already be rid of Arthur for good. If only Allie hadn't turned out to be the Lady of the Lake instead of the Lady of Shalott.

That was when he noticed who it was buying the hot dogs from Ralph.

Emrys (Miles, Merlin) himself, accompanied by the Lady of the Lake, Arthur's current girlfriend.

Interesting, Mr. Moore thought to himself, very interesting.

Lowering the binoculars, he noticed a girl walking by. He'd been paying attention to this girl lately, not as much as he'd tried to pay to Arthur and the rest, but enough, because he was beginning to suspect she was someone important.

Her name was Nikki, in this life, and he wasn't the only one who had noticed her.

Two other people had already taken note of her and obviously wondered where she came into play as far as the legend went.

First, Emrys had thought her pretty, even seemed to have something of a crush on her. Then there was his replacement, at the school, Mr. Guy. Will, Allie, Miles, and Marco evidently hadn't figured out who he was yet, but Moore had a pretty good idea. He was surprised Miles hadn't recognized him, being as they'd been so close in Camelot. Marco at least should have known something was up, since Mr. Guy happened to be an honorary member of the Order of the Bear.

Anyway, Mr. Guy had been taking a slight interest in Nikki's welfare and behavior lately, too, probably because he wanted to protect her. Mr. Guy might have suspected, Mordred guessed, that Nikki was Morgana, and that maybe there was some hope of keeping her from going wrong this time-or even from coming into the story at all, if it would protect her and the others.

But, truth was, Moore knew Guy's first assumption as to this girl's past identity was wrong. Every bit as wrong as his own assumption about Allie had been. Guy only thought Nikki was Morgana because they hadn't found her counterpart in this generation yet; and he must have felt some connection to this girl, like they'd met before, even been good friends once upon a time before things went sour.

But Nikki wasn't really Morgana at all.

She was Nimueh.

The same Nimueh responsible for Arthur's birth in Camelot and, by default, the death of his mother Igraine. But also the same Nimueh who would be likely to share Mordred's strong disliking for Emrys, because he'd refused to form an alliance with her and, instead, killed her with a bolt of lightning.

And before the others realized this, Mr. Moore was determined to bring her over to his side.

"Psst!" he called to her.

Nikki stopped walking, glanced at the ice cream truck, saw where he was and, hesitantly, came over. "I'm sorry, were you calling me?"

"Do you know who I am?"

"Aren't you that teacher who went psycho and thought Will Wagner was trying to kill him with a plastic sword?" she asked, lowering her light-colored brow slightly. "Mr. Moore, right? I don't think I was in any of your classes."

"Yes, yes." He waved that off. "Listen, Nimueh, we really need to talk."

She blinked at him. "My name is _Nikki_."

He tried explain part of the Arthurian reincarnation deal to her, but that only freaked her out. "Here." Mr. Moore pulled out a piece of paper and a permanent marker and wrote a phone number on it. "When weird things start happening and you realize I'm telling the truth, call. It occurs to me, Nimueh, that, should you start to remember, we might have at least one enemy in common."

Nikki, confused beyond all reason, backed away from the ice cream truck, crumpling the piece of paper Mr. Moore's number was written on. But she didn't throw it on the ground or in the trash. Instead, the crumpled ball of paper ended up stuffed into the side pocket on her jeans.

The middle-aged lady, who'd heard the whole thing, finally handed Mr. Moore his change and sarcastically snorted, "And you say you got _fired _from your job educating young adults? _Shocker_."


	6. Chapter 6

Before Nikki walked into Mr. Guy's class, a backpack over one shoulder and a clarinet case strapped to the other, Miles thought he'd gotten complete control over his emotions. All of his feelings perfectly in check, as they should be.

He hadn't thought about Freya for hours. Well, at least, not directly. Not by _that_ name, anyway. He'd noticed _Allie _seemed to be doing a lot better this morning. (She'd laughed at a joke Jen made, as they'd walked to their first class, and she'd smiled at Lance when he almost choked on a mouthful of Oreos.) But he didn't think about what he could piece together about her from flashes of his-_their_-past life in Camelot.

He made sure he only thought about her in _this_ time.

Because when his mind was set firmly on here and now, as long as he forced himself not to recall that they'd kissed, (as Miles and Allie, not just as Merlin and Freya), to remind himself to act like it never happened, it was easy to keep in mind that she was Will Wagner's girlfriend.

Easier still to remember that she was his friend and needed support right now. No one else knew about that man she'd killed, just him. It was his job to keep it secret. It was also his job to make sure she didn't fall too deep into depression over it. Yesterday he'd taken her to the park and slowly watched her brighten up. He was looking after her, and she was healing.

Everything, he thought (okay, _hoped_), would be okay.

Then, when Nikki showed up, Miles felt the tips of his fingers go numb. It was weird, cuz he wasn't even sure he still liked her, but she _was _seriously pretty. And she noticed he was there, looked pleasantly surprised, and smiled right at him as she walked over to Mr. Guy and held out a class transfer slip the school office had given her. If _that_ wasn't flattering to a kid whose last party invitation was actually meant for Rodd Muckinfuss, he didn't know what was.

He took note of the clarinet case; now he knew what instrument she played. But there was a twinge of guilt somewhere in the back of his mind, and he felt like avoiding Allie's eyes the whole time he was thinking about Nikki. Which was completely stupid, really. Allie wasn't his girlfriend. She was taken. He just so happened to be available. He could admire another girl's attractiveness, and be impressed with the fact that she played the clarinet for the school band, if he wanted to!

Mr. Guy cleared his throat. "Ah, yes, Nikki, you can take the empty desk in front of Miles." He looked over at Miles. "Miles, raise your hand."

But he didn't have to; Nikki already knew who he was, so she just went and sat down, twisting around in her seat to talk to him. "Hello again."

"Hey there."

"You've still got the pen," she said. She'd commented on the pen that had once been the staff Mordred had tried to defeat them with (Mr. Moore's cane before that) the night of the big game.

"You've still got the hair," he blurted, immediately feeling like an idiot.

She laughed semi-nervously. "Well, I would hope so."

"All right," said Mr. Guy in a very no-nonsense tone. "Class has begun, all eyes to the front, if you please."

Nikki turned back and took a text book out of her backpack, setting it on her desk in front of her.

"We have a new assignment today, which I-" began Mr. Guy.

But before he could say what it was, the door opened and a tall, biker type person wearing a motorcycle helmet strolled in, carrying a black satchel over one shoulder.

"Hey," Jen whispered, reaching over and tapping Lance on the shoulder. "Who's _that_?"

"Beats me."

Will raised one eyebrow curiously.

The biker reached up to take off the helmet, shaking out a wad of long blond hair that fell down to the middle of _her _back.

"Whoa." Lance's eyes widened. "Dude looks like a lady."

"Oh, I know her!" Nikki said, craning her neck to talk to Miles. "She eats lunch in the band room sometimes. We're like friends, sort of. She's actually really nice."

There was definitely something off about her. The mysterious biker girl was good-looking, sure, but Miles thought she looked a bit old to still be in high school; more like she should have been in college or something.

"Anna," sighed Mr. Guy, sounding exasperated. "Thank you for deciding to grace us all with your presence. Still sporadically attending Avalon High, are we? How many times are you going to repeat this grade in various unfortunate teachers' classes?"

She snorted. "Till I break the record."

Nikki choked back a laugh.

"What are _you _doing here anyway? Don't you work in the administration office? I thought Mr. Moore taught this class."

"Well, if you'd bothered to show up a little more often, Miss Anna," Mr. Guy told her, "you would know he's been replaced. Now please go sit down on the other side of the room next to Marco."

She glanced at an empty desk to Nikki's left. "Can't I sit there?"

Allie and Miles both thought they noticed Mr. Guy suddenly look alarmed, but it passed. "No. You will sit where I tell you."

"Whatever." She marched over to her seat, motorcycle helmet tucked under her right arm.

"Anyway, as I was trying to say, this term, the school administration had to decide which one of us teachers would have to add the following lesson plan in addition to our regular assignments, and since your Health teacher is on a sabbatical in Tahiti,_ I_ got the short straw." Mr Guy lifted up a big cardboard box from behind his desk. "I'm not thrilled about it, either, so let's just get through this, shall we?"

There were a few excited (and apprehensive) whispers among some of the students. Miles wasn't included in the whispering; he was already taking notes. Allie rolled her eyes. Mr. Guy hadn't even said anything important yet. But, hey, this _was _Miles, after all.

Will noticed what his girlfriend was rolling her eyes at and smiled.

"I _know_, right?" she mouthed to him, smiling back. For the first time since she'd left that party, killed a man, and kept it from him (and everyone else, with the sole exception of Miles), Allie didn't feel so alienated from her boyfriend. Maybe everything really _was _as okay as Miles kept telling her it was; maybe it _could_ all go on like it had before.

"Here's how it's going to work," Mr. Guy went on. "You will be divided into boy/girl pairs for this project. You will have a fake marriage, fake jobs, and a fake baby." He opened the box and pulled out a plastic baby doll to show them.

Marco wrinkled his nose.

"Aw, man," Lance muttered. The assignment sounded pretty lame to him.

Jen and Miles both raised their hands.

"No, Jen, I've already assigned everyone's partners, you don't get to pick your own. And, yes, Miles, even though the marriage, job, and the baby are fake, the credit _will_ be real and worth ten percent of your final grade," Mr. Guy said, without skipping a beat or calling on either of them to speak their questions out loud. "And, because Mr. Moore left this behind, this is what you'll be picking your jobs out of." He dropped the plastic baby on the desk with a light _thump_ and picked up a metal replica of a medieval knight's helmet full of slips of paper.

Allie glanced at Miles. It suddenly seemed like so long ago that they'd been assigned as partners and she'd drawn out the slip with _The Order of the Bear_ written on it from that very same helmet.

"Jennifer, you're with Marco," Mr. Guy informed her, walking over and holding out the helmet.

Jen started to make a face, thought better of it, shrugged, and took a slip of paper. Marco. Okay, then. Not too bad. She liked him a lot better now that she knew he wasn't hellbent on ruining Will's life-or _worse_, his house parties. Being fake-married to him couldn't be_ so_ bad...

She read her slip out loud. "Fashion designer." She nodded. "Cool."

"Marco, pick." Mr. Guy held it out in front of him next.

He pulled out a slip. "Brain surgeon."

Miles cocked his head, looking up from his notebook. "Seriously?"

Marco frowned. "Shut up."

"Congratulations," Mr. Guy said dryly. "Pick up a baby on the way out."

"I'm naming it Katey," Jen said to Marco over her shoulder.

"Yeah, whatever." He couldn't care less what she called the thing. It was made of _plastic_, for god's sake!

"You're so not supportive," Jen grumbled.

"What'd I do?" Marco snapped.

"Welcome to married life," Mr. Guy told him. "Where your wife is concerned, you've _always_ done something wrong." He was standing in front of Will now. "Will, you're with Allie."

Miles had the feeling like a giant kangaroo had just walked up to him and then socked him right in the gut: surprise, followed by muted pain. Allie was usually _his_ partner. Ever since that first assignment on the Order of the Bear Mr. Moore had given them, they'd always worked together. True, he liked working alone. But he liked working with his best friend even better, now that he actually _had _one (a best friend, that is).

Will pulled out his job slip. "Congressman."

Allie got hers next. "Professor of Medieval literature." She lowered her brow and squinted at the paper in her hands, as if to be sure she'd read it right. "Oh, come _on_!" A half-laugh, half-snort of disbelief escaped her. Real cute, but there was no way she was following in her parents' footsteps. Thank _goodness_ it was just pretend!

_I don't know if I _can_ work with a new partner..._ Miles felt his stomach knotting up. He'd always worked either alone, or with Allie. Never with anyone else. He hated depending on people he didn't trust for half his grade. He also hated socializing with people he didn't like. He'd grown used to Allie and Will, and, to a lesser degree, Jen, Lance, and Marco, but they were all taken with the sole exception of Lance, and if he didn't get Lance, then who...

"Miles," Mr. Guy said, pausing to clear his throat. "You're with Nikki."

Well, maybe I could give this whole 'new partner' thing a _try_, he immediately thought, following that bit of info.

Nikki picked her job out of the helmet first; she was sitting in front of him and thus was sightly closer to the teacher's out-stretched arm. "Antique shop owner."

Miles reached into the helmet and pulled his slip out. "Waiter at Medieval Times restaurant." Rolling his eyes, Miles leaned sideways and whispered to Allie, "Sure, Marco gets brain surgeon, and I'm stuck waiting tables, adding thee and thou to the ending of grammatically incorrect sentences whenever people ask me where the bathroom is. _Great_."

"Aw, it's not _that_ bad," Allie whispered back. "It's just pretend. Maybe it'll be kind of fun."

"_Fun_," Miles echoed sarcastically. "Yeah, sure. Fun like elective dental surgery."

"Well, I think Lance and his partner both just drew 'dentist' from the helmet," Allie told him. "They may be able to help you out with that one."

"Ha ha, very funny." Miles sat up straight in his chair again.

Nikki turned in her seat to smile at him again.

He felt himself blush. Okay, so maybe it wasn't going to be _all _bad...

After Mr. Guy had finished assigning their partners, letting them draw their jobs out of the helmet, and explaining the whole lesson over again for the kids who, instead of listening the first time, had been making paper footballs and throwing them at their buddies' heads, the bell rang and everyone was dismissed.

"Hey, I've got to go to study hall," Will told Allie, standing up and tossing his backpack over his shoulder, "but I'll see you at lunch. Save me a seat, okay?"

Allie nodded. "Sure thing."

Will leaned forward and gave her a quick kiss goodbye.

Ugh, thought Miles at seeing this, he's kissing her _again_? It's like he just got out of the army or something.

This, of course, wasn't true. Will was not constantly kissing Allie (no more than any other boyfriend kissed his girlfriend, anyway), Miles was just feeling jealous. Which, he knew was pretty stupid, considering that by all accounts things were going really well for him (he'd gotten _Nikki _of all people as a partner, and she'd _just _transferred into the class, so what had been the odds of_ that_ happening?), but he couldn't entirely help it. Every time he saw Will and Allie together now, he felt like he was Merlin again and had just walked in on Freya and Arthur making out in Camelot.

Which was ridiculous, seeing as, in this life, he _knew_ Allie was with Will, he had no reason whatsoever to feel betrayed or jealous, and yet, if he didn't fight it, didn't push it to the back of his mind before his whirling thoughts settled, he did.

If anyone had a right to feel betrayed, it was Will. And he didn't even know it. He had no idea Allie and Miles had kissed and then tried to act like it never happened. Miles knew this, and he felt awful about it, especially considering what Will had gone through with Jen, and yet there was nothing he could do.

At least, he knew it wouldn't be a repeat of the Jen & Lance Incident. Because Allie had obviously felt nothing. Nothing worth acting on again, anyway. She was with Will and that was who she _wanted_ to be with, not _him_.

Getting up, Nikki tripped and dropped her books on the floor.

Miles got up and bent over to help her pick them up. "Oh, here."

"Thanks." She nodded gratefully, then looked over at the clock on the wall. "Oh, rats. I'm going to be late for band practice. Miles, can you pick up the plastic baby on your way out?" She noticed it was mostly the girls doing so, while the boys tried to get out of the class as quickly as possible (Marco was the first one out the door), but she didn't think Miles wouldn't mind.

Miles shrugged. "I guess."

After Miles had pulled the baby doll out of the cardboard box (and was about to stuff it in his backpack with the rest of his homework), Mr. Guy called him over to his desk.

Everybody else, except for Allie, who was in the doorway waiting for Miles so they could walk to their next class together like they usually did, and Anna, who was sticking a wad of gum under her desk before leaving for whatever she had next, had already gone.

The bell had rung almost four minutes ago, and if he was held back any longer, Miles knew he was going to be late to his next class.

He gestured pathetically at the head of the baby doll sticking out from his unzipped backpack. "But I'm with fake child, I have to go-"

Mr. Guy did not find this amusing. "Well, you'll come here if you want to be with real grade on your next report card."

"Yes, Mr. Guy."

Anna had finally left, but Allie was still in the doorway.

"Miss Pennington," said Mr. Guy, giving her a firm stare, "don't you have somewhere to be right now?"

Mouthing, "Sorry," to Miles, Allie nodded and took off down the hall.

"I trust you have some idea why I assigned you to work with Nikki, Miles?"

"Uh..." No, not really.

"Do you recognize this?" Mr. Guy took off a clasped chain from around his neck and set it down in front of him on the far edge of the desk.

Miles knew the medallion right away. It was the exact same one Marco had, that he'd gotten from his father, who was in The Order of the Bear. "You're..."

"That's right, Miles," Mr. Guy said. "I'm in the Order. After what happened with Mr. Moore, it was important that someone who had some idea of what was going on at this school become his replacement. It took some string-pulling, but it was done. Luckily, because the Order has long anticipated that the identity of the returned Arthur would become apparent during the boy's formative years, there were several members of the Order working undercover in various jobs in various schools across the country (including right here at Avalon High), many of which have been able to quit, now that we've discovered William Wagner."

"You know," Miles said, "don't you? That Mr. Moore...Mordred..."

"Is working as an ice cream man, and plotting his revenge?" Mr. Guy sighed. "Of course. But he's not my biggest concern at the moment."

"Then who is?"

"Morgana."

"Oh, great," snorted Miles. "You think _she's_ here too? No offense, Mr. Guy, but this is quickly turning into the worst family reunion _ever_."

"She must be. But, unlike Mordred, there's a chance Morgana is still young here and has not yet been corrupted. That's why I assigned you to work with Nikki, I feel that-"

"Wait!" Miles jumped in, cutting him off. "You think _Nikki_ is Morgana?"

"All the signs appear to point to that, yes," Mr. Guy answered mildly. "I've overheard her talking with another girl in the hallway about having nightmares, and I've noticed she seems eager to be friends with Morgause..."

"Morgause?" Miles repeated.

"Can't you guess who she is?"

He thought for a moment. "_Anna_?" It seemed insane, but no more insane than his being Merlin, or Allie being Freya, or Will being the great King Arthur himself. Except, somehow, he wasn't convinced Nikki was _really_ Morgana. Anna being Morgause, mind-boggling, yet easier to absorb than Nikki being the Lady Morgana. Something in his gut was telling him that both himself and Mr. Guy were overlooking an important factor here, but he wasn't sure what that factor _was_.

Mr. Guy nodded. "Anna will corrupt her, as Morgause corrupted Morgana, unless, in this life, Nikki believes there is someone else she can rely on, somebody she can turn to who _won't_ think her crazy when she pieces together who she really is and at the same time will not encourage her to use her powers for evil-or even just plain revenge."

"You think, if she doesn't have help, Nikki could hurt Will?" Now _that_, that Miles couldn't imagine at all. Someone as sweet and pretty as her want to ruin Will Wagner's life?

"Yes, that is why, even though in Camelot I told you _not _to tell her of your powers," Mr. Guy explained, "I think, this time, you _must _show her what you're re-learning. You have to help her learn to use what she has for good. One way or another, I fear she will be drawn into this."

"You really _remember_ Camelot." Miles felt a bit choked up.

"Parts of it, yes, I've had visions."

"Me, too!" Miles blurted out. "I-" He stopped. A member of the Order of the Bear wouldn't understand how he felt when he remembered Freya-how he felt about Allie-they'd rightly be concerned only about how it would effect Arthur.

"Yes?"

"I..." He thought quickly. "I was just wondering... Morgana, I mean, Nikki, is she...like me? Does she really have magic in this life, too?"

"Merlin," Mr. Guy said gently, "no one is like you. But, yes, there's a chance she may have magic. Has yours been manifesting itself?"

"I accidentally set a raft on fire and stole a rose from Mr. Pennington," Miles offered.

Mr. Guy chuckled at that, a faint twinkle of amusement finally coming into his eyes.

And it was in that instant that Miles recognized him.

That look, along with the way he'd spoken when he called him Merlin instead of Miles, gave it away and jogged a long-forgotten memory. Miles felt like someone had thrown a pebble at the back his head.

"G-gaius?" he stammered, blinking.

Mr. Guy nodded. "Well spotted."

"I can't believe it!" All of the memories of his former friend, who had been almost like a father to him in Camelot, were coming back faster and faster. It made the back of his eyes hurt and his head pound, but right then he didn't care all that much.

Mr. Guy stood up, a little taken back when Miles came forward and hugged him. Miles was even a little surprised himself.

The door creaked open and Will walked in. "I forgot my pencil. They let me leave study hall to come back and get it."

Miles quickly let go of his teacher when he noticed the funny look Will was giving them.

"I know it's none of my business, Miles," Will said, struggling not to laugh, "but I really think you're trying a little _too_ hard to get an A." With that, he quickly grabbed his pencil off his desk, and left the classroom.

Miles and Mr. Guy looked at each other out of the corner of their eyes and cracked up. They couldn't help it. The look on Will's (Arthur's) face! Priceless!

"Oh, one more thing, before you go." Mr. Guy said, finally steadying himself.

"Yes?"

"You know about Peer Counseling?"

"I think it's stupid," Miles said flatly. "I mean, the kids here already tell each other what to do, how to act, and what to wear enough _without _it."

"I think you should be a counselor."

"You're kidding, right?" Miles frowned. "I'm in no position to give advice to anyone."

"Oh, well, basically all you'd have to do is nod sympathetically and say, 'and how does that make you feel?' and 'stay in school' a few dozen times."

"I don't know if I_ can_ be sympathetic." Considering that most of the kids at Avalon High hated him, that _would _be quite the feat.

"It counts as an extracurricular activity," Mr. Guy informed him.

"I wouldn't have to walk dogs anymore?"

"That's right."

"I can be sympathetic," Miles decided quickly.

_Yes!_ he thought as he left, signed late pass in hand, headed to his next class. _No more picking up dog poop every other weekend! Maybe things really _are_ starting to look u_p.


	7. Chapter 7

Peer counseling was actually not so hard, it turned out. For some weird reason, the school board had decided it was easier talking to one of your peers about serious problems if you didn't actually see them (kind of like the Catholic priests during confession). So, basically, (because the school was too cheap to invest in anything better), the room was divided with one of those long white sheets they covered the old projectors hardly any of the teachers even used in their classes anymore with when they were in the janitor's closet gathering dust, hanging from a ceiling rafter, and all Miles had to do was sit on one side and wait for kids to come in, sit on the other, and whine about how 'hard' their lives were.

Miles couldn't understand a word the first kid who came in said. All they did was cry and blow their nose. He let the kid finish bawling, then said, in a flat monotone, "There, there," and added, "Stay in school" for good measure.

The next kid was a football player who was upset and thought his life was over because he was second-string. Miles repressed the urge to tell him to 'get a grip' and instead quickly rattled off that he should be glad he made the team at all and, if he wasn't happy with that, should look into other activities.

Then a girl came in and started complaining about how she thought her boyfriend was going to dump her.

Her voice sounded really familiar, but Miles was a bit preoccupied getting some of his homework done early on a fold-out table behind the sheet, so he wasn't paying as much attention as he should have.

"So," the girl went on, whimpering, "my boyfriend, uh... We're not supposed to use real names here, are we?"

"Uh, I don't think so, no." Miles said offhandedly, his mind still mostly focused on the word problem in front of him.

"Okay, so, let's call him, um, Yance." She took in a sharp breath. "I think my boyfriend Yance thinks I still have feelings for my ex-boyfriend...um, Bill..."

_Wait a minute..._ Miles dropped his pencil and his shadow on the girl's side of the sheet looked up. _Yance and Bill? _

It couldn't be...

"Yennifer?" Miles blurted. "I mean, _Jennifer_?" He reached over and lifted the sheet. "Jen?"

"Yiles!" She blinked and shook her head rapidly like there was a bee caught in her ears. "Miles," she corrected herself. "_You're_ a counselor?"

"It got me out of walking dogs."

"Ah, well, then."

"You still have feelings for Will?"

Jen went red. "No! Of course not. Well, I mean, I _do_, of course I do, but not... Not like _that_... It's Lance who thinks I... And he's _wrong_, Miles. He's dead wrong. I love _him_; we're meant to be together. Lance is the only guy for me." She crinkled her forehead. "I think."

"Jen..." Miles didn't know what to say, but he was starting to doubt that Jen wasn't just fooling herself. And it wasn't just the way she'd added, "I think," either. It ran deeper than that.

Maybe even, he thought, _centuries_ deeper.

It would have been so much easier if Jen knew about being Gwen, but he didn't see how he could just _tell_ her, especially not _now_. First Mr. Moore going crazy and calling Will King Arthur, and now the newest peer counselor saying Jen-Will Wagner's ex-had been Arthur's queen? People would seriously start thinking there was something messed up in the water at Avalon High. And even if he _wasn't_ so sure she'd never believe him, Miles still didn't think he could fully talk to her about it. He wasn't close enough to Jen in this life to trust her as a confidant. If he so much as _hinted_ he might possibly sort of, maybe just a little bit, like Allie as more than just a friend, Jen would probably send it through the school faster than the speed of light.

But this wasn't about _him_, anyway. This was about Jen and Will (oh, yeah, and Lance too); and if part of him secretly hoped that Jen really did still have romantic feelings for Will that he might possibly return, there was absolutely no need to voice that particular opinion. And not in the least because another part of him didn't want that at all; he wanted Allie to be happy and knew she wouldn't be if Will left her for Jen. Not, of course, that he could exactly picture someone like Will Wagner doing that... Which, in a pretty sucky way, made him feel like a huge jerk for even _trying _to imagine that in the first place.

"Miles,_ please_." Jen bit her lower lip. "You don't understand. I _can't_ lose Lance."

"And _why_ are you telling me all this?"

"Because I think he wants to break up with me." Her lip quivered and she bit down on it again, harder. "If he really believes I still want Will, if he has even the slightest doubt that Will isn't over me, he'll end everything. That's just the way he is."

"Really?" Miles asked. "Cuz he didn't seem like that when he was with you behind Will's back." Oh, rats, that was probably _not_ the most 'sympathetic' thing to say to that.

Jen released her lip and frowned. "He felt guilty all the time, Miles. We both did. And when Will told him we hadn't been close in a long time it was like the weight of the world was off his shoulders. But I can't help feeling like he still sometimes thinks of me as being 'his best friend Will's girl'. And that's not fair to me. Will's over it. I thought Lance was too. Why does everything have to be so...so...so _complicated_?" She sniffled. "You know, even when things were great between us, before we started drifting, Will never looked at me the way he looks at Allie every single time she walks into a room. Not even once."

"That's-" Miles started.

Jen cut him off. "No, it's true, Miles. But I'm okay with it. I just can't lose Lance, too. I can't stand the thought of him breaking up with me. I feel like maybe all my choices haven't been the right ones, I don't know... But I also don't know how I'm supposed to deal with them if they just leave me with nothing to work with. Can you understand that?" It was like how people always said that once you made your bed you had to sleep in it. Jen couldn't understand how she was supposed to do that if the mattress was yanked right out from under her.

"Lance really cares about you, Jen," Miles told her.

"That's exactly why I'm worried," she said quietly.

"What do you want me to say?"

"Nothing. Just..." Her face lit up, an idea coming to her. "Hey! Will's throwing a party this Saturday afternoon. Nothing big, just a small get-together to celebrate his football scholarship. Allie's coming, so that means you are, too, right?"

Miles shrugged. "Maybe." Of course he was. Even if it was only just to make sure Allie actually went (instead of bailing out, like she did when Will had invited her sailing) and didn't slink back into being depressed again. But of course he couldn't tell Jen _that_.

"That's perfect."

"It is?"

"Of course!" Jen said enthusiastically. "I have this idea, sort of, that Lance is working up the nerve to pull me aside at Will's party and _talk_." (She paused pointedly and did air quotes on 'talk'). "That's when he's going to try and break up with me. See, I can keep us from being completely alone for a few days to give him time to get over his issues, but if he pulls me aside at the party while everybody's distracted by the beer or the guacamole or whatever, there's nothing I can do about it." She raised her eyebrows.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You can hang around us and if he starts to try and break up with me, you can distract him."

That was, by far, one of the stupidest ideas Miles had ever heard. Way too stupid to have come from someone like Jen. Unless she was desperate, that is. Jen was a lot of things, but she wasn't an idiot. "How am I supposed to do that?"

"I don't know!" Jen cried. "But you have to. We can think of a code word or something, and when I say it, you butt into the conversation real fast, okay?"

"No."

"Miles!"

"_No_." He reached up and massaged his temples with his thumb and index finger.

"Please, I'm asking you as a friend."

They weren't that good of friends. "Nope. Sorry, Jen. Not doing it. I'm not getting mixed up in your problems with Lance." Geez, one day as a disturbingly unqualified counselor and next thing you knew..._ Bam_! You were being called on to save a relationship.

I swear, he thought, exasperated, this could only happen to _me_.

"Miles, you're the only one I'd trust with this." Jen cocked her head at him pleadingly.

"I'm not buying that."

"It's true. None of my friends on the cheer squad would do it, they'd get bored, or tell Lance-or worse _Will_-everything."

"Nice friends." Miles rolled his eyes.

"They're okay, they're just really bad at keeping secrets." Jen waved that off. "Anyway, I'd ask Allie, but I can't. Her being Will's girlfriend and all; it would be awkward. I wasn't going to ask you, I really had no clue you were behind that sheet, but you're so easy to talk to, Miles, and I know _you_ won't tell anyone."

Miles had to admit he was weakening. He and Jen weren't close, but Gwen had been a good friend of his back in Camelot, and it was the same person inside of her now. The same person who was begging him to help her now. He couldn't just leave her hanging. Not when she needed him so badly.

He hated getting involved, but, truth was, he couldn't help thinking: if the situation was reversed, if he was in an otherwise good boyfriend/girlfriend relationship with someone (yeah right) who wanted to end it because they guessed how he felt about Allie... If Jen could somehow help, wouldn't he want her to?

And shouldn't he do the same for her?

And for Allie?

Because, if Jen secretly wanted Will back, especially if Lance dumped her...

He couldn't let what his friends had (all four of them) just fall apart.

Gosh, it was all so much easier back when he hadn't _had _any friends!

Miles closed his eyes, groaned, then opened them again. "Okay, fine. I'll do it."

"Thank you!" Jen broke out into a big grin. "I owe you big time."

"Don't mention it." He looked at his watch and stood up.

"Hey." Jen's forehead crinkled. "Where are you going?"

"My time's up." He grabbed his homework off the fold-out table, put it in a binder, and tried to fit it in his backpack along with the baby doll from Mr. Guy's class. "And I think I might have a study date."

"With Nikki?" Jen teased, wiggling an eyebrow suggestively. She'd noticed the doll sticking out of his backpack.

"Yep." He refused to elaborate.

"Some luck that Mr. Guy assigned you to work together, huh?"

"Yeah. Real lucky. See you around." He was almost at the door.

"I guess I'll have to call Marco at some point and remind him that he is the father of my homework."

"Good luck." Miles held back a chuckle, opening the door and walking out.

Miles took his bike to Nikki's house. He could have driven over in the car, but he wanted the extra time to think. Sometimes he took the bike over to Allie's, like the night he'd had the vision of them reading the Order of the Bear journal and discovering the secret page and the stupid car had decided not to start up. There was nothing the matter with the car today, except that it would get him to his destination too quickly. And how was that supposed to give him enough time to figure out what to say?

What exactly did Mr. Guy expect him to do? Walk into Nikki's house and be all, "Hey, guess what? Funny story. Turns out, I'm Merlin and you're Morgana, you know, from Arthurian Legend? But it's no big deal, really. So, what'd you think of the Trig homework last week?"

She was going to think he was out of his mind.

It figured. The first girl who might-just _might_-really like him, _him_, Miles, and not some random meat-head jock, the first pretty girl who not only said something to him other than "Get out of my way, Nerd!" or, "Hey, you're taller than me, can you get the can of cat food off that high shelf?" (not counting Allie and Jen, respectively), but also smiled at him when they met at school, who didn't groan or roll her eyes when she got him as her assigned partner, and he was going to have to tell her something she would probably never believe in a million years. In this case, it didn't matter that she wasn't the reincarnation of Freya; Morgana might be kind of cool to be around, if they could keep her from going to the dark side or whatever. Here was his one chance, and he had to let himself seem like a nutcase or else the world-and Arthur (Will)-would be in danger.

However, if he'd really wanted a chance with her, he should have taken it long before now, instead of wasting all his time hoping he'd magically get over his sudden and unwanted feelings for Freya (Allie). He wasn't even sure how he felt about Nikki. The problem was, if she thought he was psycho and slammed the door in his face and transferred classes again just to get away from him, he never _would_.

On the other hand, if she didn't freak out, if by some strange occurrence such as a giant safe falling out of the sky and hitting her on the head, she believed him, maybe it would be sort of nice to have someone else besides Will, Allie, Marco, and now Mr. Guy, know who (and _what_) he really was. He was still getting the hang of his own magic, sure, but there were some things he could teach her, probably even some things they could learn _together_.

Allie might have been the reincarnation of a Druid, but for some reason it had never occurred to Miles to consider trying to practice magic with her-just _for_ her. Working with Nikki would be a completely different experience. Morgana was supposed to have been really powerful. If she could be used to _help _Arthur instead of hurt him this time around, if she and Merlin could really and truly be friends (or even more than friends), there was no telling all the good they could do. All the good they could do together. And nothing would have to be ruined. Allie would stay with Will, she would guide Arthur in a way she hadn't been able to in her past life for whatever reason (Miles still didn't fully remember what happened to her); Jen and Lance would patch everything up, giving Gwen and Lancelot the chance to be together without complication; and he wouldn't end up being the only one left out, for once, because he'd have Nikki, he'd have saved Morgana and been given a fresh chance with her.

It was almost too much to take in. It made him dizzy. But before it could get bad enough that Miles thought he would lose his balance and fall off the bike, he was in front of Nikki's house.

He parked his bike against the short wire fence that separated Nikki's parents' yard from the rest of the neighborhood, and walked onto the narrow brick path leading through the lawn. Some of the bricks were missing in such a way that, if you ran too quickly, you could twist an ankle.

This was the first time he'd ever seen her house. He wasn't sure what he'd expected. It was simple enough. A normal-looking, gray, two-story colonial house with dirt-stained white shingles, green shutters, and an attic with a single diamond-shaped window (the glass of which sparkled almost like polished crystal in the mid to late afternoon light) facing the front yard, the lawn, and the broken brick path.

It was a bit foggy out and Miles had to trudge over the path, through the mist, being careful where he put his feet.

There was nothing about the place that should have made him feel uncomfortable, but he did have a sort of awkward sense that something was off and he should be on his guard, though he couldn't think why.

He noticed there was a boat on the front porch. It looked old, like no one had used it in a long, long time, probably full of holes.

Shrugging, Miles rang the doorbell.

Nikki opened the door. "Hey!"

He smiled. "Before we start on the school project, there's something I have to talk to you about."

"Sure, come in." She held the door open a little wider so he could enter. "I'd introduce you to my parents, but they're not home. I think they're still at work."

Not like Allie's parents who were almost always home, Miles couldn't help thinking, sort of feeling homesick for his best friend's house. Somehow he doubted this place had a pool, or makeshift in-home offices that reeked of old books, coffee, and printer paper where Nikki's parents liked to study. _Her _parents probably had so-called 'normal' jobs, in offices with cubicles and loud-mouth bosses with anger management issues or whatever.

"You may want to sit down for this," Miles told her when they'd entered the living room.

"Oh...kay..." She sat down in a rocking-chair near the window and a case full of dvds (all regular movies, most of which had been American blockbusters, not a single documentary or foreign film with subtitles among them) and pulled a couch pillow onto her lap, fidgeting with a corner tassel.

"This is going to sound really weird," Miles warned her. "Try not to freak out."

She nodded.

"Uh..." He rung his hands and looked down at his feet. "You're...I'm... Nikki, do you believe in reincarnation?"

"What?"

"All right, this isn't working. I'm just going to come right out and say it."

"Please do," Nikki said, laughing nervously, wondering what he was getting at.

This was too weird. Way too awkward. He hadn't even told his _mom_ yet, and here he was about to spill the beans to this girl he barely knew and had most likely become enemies with in a past life. Maybe he should hold off. Except, Mr. Guy wouldn't be too thrilled if he did that. He was supposed to be helping Nikki-_protecting _her, in a way. "Um, I'm Merlin. And Gaius...I mean,_ Mr. Guy_...he thinks you're the reincarnation of the Lady Morgana."

Nikki's eyes widened. Miles sounded just like that creepy ex-teacher in the ice cream truck. Well, except for the fact that he'd said she was _Nimueh_, not Morgana. Only it wasn't as creepy when _Miles _said it. It was every bit as unbelievable and ridiculous, but not creepy. And maybe it had something to do with the fact that Miles seemed pretty lucid. She'd never taken him for a crazy person. He always came across as so logical and sensible, and, well, just plain _smart_ to her.

"You mean," she said at last, "from the King Arthur story?"

"That's the one."

"You think you're Merlin reincarnated?"

"I don't _think_ it anymore. I _know_ I am." He took a step closer to her chair. "I have flashes of the future sometimes. Lately I've been having them of the past, too. I actually remember being Merlin."

"And you remember me being there?" she said slowly. "As Morgana?"

He shook his head. "No, not exactly. But that could be because I don't remember a whole lot about Morgana. It's only flashes. Sometimes they're not real clear."

"I don't believe in all this," Nikki said flatly, shooting him an apologetic half-smile. Miles, the reincarnation of that old wizard with a beard and a pointy hat from that Disney cartoon _The Sword in the Stone_? No way.

What could he do to show her? He lifted his hand and, whispering one of those non-English words that had been coming back to him ever since he reclaimed his staff (still currently a pen) from Mordred, made a dvd sail off the shelf and land in Nikki's lap.

She stared at him. "Your eyes."

"What about them?" That sounded like a pretty strange thing for her to say, considering he'd just made an inanimate object _float_ to her and then drop into her lap.

"Did they just..._glow_?" She could have sworn, when Miles made that dvd move, his eyes had turned a bright glowing _gold _color for a split-second there.

"I don't know," Miles said. "I'm still figuring out how a lot of this magic stuff works. Sometimes it's cool, other times it's kind of painful."

"Can you make something else happen?" Nikki asked.

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Open a book from across the room, or make the curtains disappear?"

"Well, I could probably set the curtains on _fire_," Miles told her. "But I don't think I'd want to explain that one to your parents."

"You think..." There was an excited catch in her throat that left her breathless. "You think _I_ could do magic, too? If I'm really Morgana?"

He nodded.

"Can you teach me?"

"I can try. Like I said, I'm still re-learning it all myself."

"But you'll teach me all you know? About doing magic?"

"I guess that's what I'm here for," Miles said.

For the next couple of days, Miles showed up at Nikki's house after school and gave her what, in another time, under different circumstances, might have been called 'magic lessons'. They usually held these outside in the backyard, which Miles hadn't seen on the first day. This was because they didn't want to accidentally set anything important on fire or blow up something in the house with a spell they hadn't gotten the hang of yet.

Miles found Nikki's attention flattering, as he always had. And, if anything, the fact that he was Merlin had only made her smile at him _more_. He even had the feeling she really looked up to him. He couldn't remember any girl at Avalon High ever admiring him like this before.

Things would have been perfect except for one little thing-one pesky feeling he couldn't shake.

He missed Allie.

He knew she was all right, he'd called her both times on his way home from Nikki's so he would know for sure she wasn't slipping back into her depression and was actually hanging out with Will and the others and not just sitting up in her room thinking about that man she'd killed, and he was still going to that party with her Saturday (though, thanks to Jen, he'd probably spend the whole thing sitting between her and Lance). It wasn't really that he was _worried_ about her. He simply missed being around her. That was all.

Sure, it was only two or three days, but it _felt _longer.

Not, of course, that he wasn't enjoying Nikki's company, or the lessons themselves.

It turned out Nikki really _did_ have some power. She could light things on fire, same as he could. She just needed more practice (just like he did).

Which was pretty apparent when she almost accidentally hit Miles in the chest with a fireball she hadn't meant to create (she'd only been trying to light the top of the empty birdbath near the hedge on fire).

It was only that he suddenly had one of his visions and lurched to the side, clutching his head, that prevented him from being horribly killed (or at least badly burned).

Instead of hitting him, the fireball went sailing harmlessly into the stratosphere and (as far as they knew) eventually fizzled out.

The vision itself left Miles, not only moaning from the pain (it still felt like being hit in the head with a brick), but also seriously confused.

_A woman... A very beautiful woman with dark hair and blue eyes... Looking down at him. Smoke was rising from his clothing. "Pity," she said. "Together we could have ruled the world."_

Then it changed.

_Nikki, standing in front of the birdbath suddenly filled with water, looking down, scrying, a glare, followed by a cold smile, on her face. _

"Miles!" Nikki was at his side, shaking his arm. "Oh my god! Are you okay?"

He opened his eyes. "Yeah."

After that (and after she was fully sure Miles hadn't just dropped dead after dodging the fireball), Nikki wanted him to show her how he had visions. But that was the one thing he couldn't even _try_ to teach her. Even though he could sometimes make it happen on demand, he didn't know how to explain the process in a way that could be copied.

He tried telling Mr. Guy about this after class the next day.

"I don't understand why she can't see the future."

"I must admit," Mr. Guy said, "it puzzles me. Morgana was always much more of a seer than you."

"Really?" Miles didn't remember that.

He nodded. "Oh, yes, she suffered from nightmares that were often _full_ of glimpses of the future. I had to give her sleeping drafts to dull them. They were that powerful."

"Mr. Guy, there's something el-" Miles was about to tell him about his vision.

"Listen, you're going to be late to your next class. You'd better hurry."

He'd tell him later. "Okay. Don't worry, Mr. Guy, I think Nikki's going to be all right this time. She's learning magic, she seems happy, and she has no interest in ruining Will's life." _Or interest in Will period, unlike...other girls..._

"I hope so," Mr Guy sighed, thinking sadly of Morgana. "I hope so."

Later that day, Miles was sitting on a bench in the park going over some History homework (he had a book open in his lap and some study sheets clipped to his binder so that the wind didn't blow them away). He was intensely focused, right up until he thought he heard his name.

He looked up to see Allie running by him, waving as she passed his bench. She was out running on her own again; she seemed pretty happy.

Miles sighed and looked back down at his book again.

About fifteen minutes later, Miles heard heavy breathing and felt the bench shake slightly. Allie, finishing up her run, had come back and sat down beside him, panting from the exercise.

"Hey."

"Hey, Allie."

"How's everything?"

"Fine," he said, without looking up, turning a page in the History book.

They sat there, side by side, in silence for a few minutes. If it had been anyone else, Miles probably would have forgotten he wasn't alone; but obviously he had a problem forgetting about Allie in general, so that wasn't the case. He was aware the whole time that she was sitting right beside him.

Tired and quickly getting that her friend wasn't in a very talkative mood, Allie leaned her head on his shoulder.

It didn't mean anything. It was a simple, innocent gesture that could have been ignored or shrugged off. But, for Miles, it was enough to break his concentration and make his heartbeat just a bit faster.

He closed the book, using his thumb as a bookmark, and, craning his neck, looked at Allie.

Her eyes were closed; she didn't see him looking at her, or the gentle, blithe smile he gave her before opening his book again.

But Marco, walking by the bench on the opposite side, did. He watched the short exchange warily. He knew, to some extent, how these things started. He'd more or less _seen_ Lance and Jen fall in love right under his stepbrother's oblivious nose.

Though, of course, Miles and Allie were very different people from Lance and Jen; the odds that _they'd_ hurt Will in the same way did seem a bit slim, but stranger things had happened, and if he wanted to protect Will (and the rest of the reincarnated Arthurian court), he would have to keep his eyes open.

After all, someone else was. And if things _did_ go wrong, the pair of binoculars looking out of a nearby ice cream truck, zoomed in right then on the reincarnation of the Lady of the Lake with her head on Merlin's shoulder, could have a greater impact on the downfall of King Arthur than they could possibly imagine.


	8. Chapter 8

Allie didn't know what was _with_ Miles that Saturday afternoon they went to the party at Will's house. He seemed easily irritated and even more easily distracted. And yet he still insisted they both go, and was the one who drove her there.

Walking up the front steps and into the house, Allie turned to him. "I'm going to find Will."

"Okay." He noticed Nikki talking to another girl from her band class and one of the cheerleaders on Jen's squad. "I'm going to go talk to-"

But before he could, Miles felt someone hook his arm. "Miles!" Jen whispered loudly. "Thank god! You're here."

"Believe it or not, that's a sentence I don't hear too often," Miles commented.

"Hey, Lance!" Jen called. "_Lance_! He's here."

"What's up, Miles?" Lance said, coming up to them. "Jen was just telling me you told her the coolest story the other day."

"I _did_?"

"Yeah, you did..." Jen cocked her head at him, raised her eyebrows, and squeezed his arm tighter. "_Remember_?"

"Oh, right..." said Miles, wincing. "_That _story. The real...uh, cool...one."

"Come hang out with us and tell it again," Jen ordered, pulling him along. "Lance, get him some punch and a snack from the refreshment table and meet us over there. Hey, Allie. Will's out back with Marco and the guys from the football team."

As he was being forcibly pulled away, Miles looked over his shoulder, first at Allie, then at Nikki, who'd finally noticed him and waved. He smiled apologetically, then turned his head around so that Jen didn't accidentally drag him into a collision with a tall clap on lamp.

Allie went out back.

Sure enough, there was Will.

He grinned when he saw her. "Allie!" He tapped one of his football friends, a new transfer student who had only just joined the team, on the shoulder. "By the way, _that's_ her."

Allie felt herself blush. Will had been talking about her! And judging by the look on the other guy's face, it was all good. She shouldn't have been surprised, she guessed, that Will said nice things about her when she wasn't around. That was, after all, what boyfriends were supposed to do, or at least, as far as she knew, since Will was her first real boyfriend, not counting a kid named Tommy she went out on one date with during her last year of junior high before her parents moved again. All the same, it still gave her this warm, sort of gushy feeling inside. How could Jen have ever wanted someone other than Will Wagner? She was a great person, and a good friend, but there had to be something seriously _wrong_ with her. But whatever.

"Where's Miles?" Will asked as Marco and two of the football guys moved out of the way so Allie could stand closer to Will and they could communicate without practically shouting. "Didn't he come with you?"

"Oh, yeah, he gave me a ride here. He's with Jen and Lance," Allie told him. "I'm guessing he's okay. I haven't heard any semi-girlish screams since Jen dragged him off, so I'm assuming he's just fine."

Will laughed at that. "You know, I think Jen had too much sugar today or something. She's been acting hyper and talking in this really high-pitched voice since she got here."

Allie felt her boyfriend's fingers intertwine with hers before she even realized he was holding her hand in the first place. It felt really nice, standing there with Will and his friends, even if Marco seemed a bit off and Will was kind of right about Jen (she _did_ seem to be acting a bit weird). It was that feeling of everything being so totally perfect coming over her again.

Except, this time, it was just the littlest bit marred by an unexpected feeling of guilt. She found herself thinking (though only for a second or so) about when she and Miles kissed. Will didn't know about that, and Miles, thank goodness, was more than willing to pretend it never happened. But it had, and if Will _did_ know, Allie felt pretty sure he'd be upset. And rightly so. Especially after the whole thing with Jen and Lance. Would he even believe her if she told him it meant nothing? Probably not. Not if she didn't explain why she was emotionally messed up that night. And she couldn't tell him about the man she'd killed; she still couldn't imagine herself looking Will in the eyes and confessing to something like that.

She wondered, would she _ever_ be able to tell him? About _any _of it? Or would she have to keep it a secret forever?

There was no point in hurting him over something that meant nothing. But Allie was the kind of person who couldn't stand people doing things they knew were wrong, acting like they could get away with it. That was, in fact, one of her biggest problems with how Lance and Jen had handled their little affair. They knew they were hurting Will, but they kept doing it anyway. And while it wasn't like she had any intention of kissing Miles _again_, wrong was still wrong.

On the other hand, it was _one_ mistake. _One_ stupid thing she'd done when she wasn't thinking straight. No one knew about it (except for Miles, obviously). It wasn't as though she was really trying to get away with it; she just didn't want to talk about it, or about anything linked to that night.

"Hey, man, you hear?" one of the guys on Will's team asked, looking up the news on his phone. "They found this dead guy in an alleyway."

"Dude!" someone said, looking over his shoulder at the phone. "That's not real far from here."

"Will, weren't you at a party near there not too long ago?"

"Yeah, Allie was with me."

Allie felt like puking.

Maybe she shouldn't have been surprised they'd found the guy. Hey, it wasn't as if she or Miles had done anything to hide the body; he had to be found sooner or later. Still, this made it more _real_ somehow. No one knew she was involved, and maybe no one ever would. They might think it was a gang killing or something. But that wasn't the _point_. Neither was the fact that it was self-defense. She just wanted it to go away. She wanted it to go away and never come back up again.

She let go of Will's hand. "I have to go to the bathroom," she lied.

Meanwhile, Jen's plan of having Miles in the middle of her and Lance, thus preventing a nasty break up by default, didn't exactly go, well, according to plan...

Lance eventually got tired of not being able to say what was on his mind, that maybe he and Jen needed some time apart, that he _did _love her but it just wasn't meant to be right then, the way it had happened not being good footing for the start of a trustworthy relationship, and finally pulled Miles aside to talk to him.

At first, Jen wasn't worried. After all, it was _Miles _he'd pulled aside, not her. Things were going to be okay, she was feeling pretty sure of that. Then she noticed the sad look on Lance's face, the way he glanced back at her, then went on with whatever he was saying to Miles, and suddenly all those hopeful feelings drained right out of her.

Her nervousness only increased when she saw Miles walking back to her on his own. Lance was going out back, probably to say goodbye to Will and apologize for leaving the party so early.

"What happened?" Jen gasped out as soon as Miles was in ear-shot. "What did he say? Where's he going? He's not leaving already, is he?"

"Jen..." Miles said, hating it, wishing he'd never agreed to be in the middle of this mess in the first place. (Strangely enough, though, he couldn't shake the feeling that he, Jen, and Lance had had this exchange-or one freakishly similar to it-before, back in Camelot.) "Lance wanted me to tell you that being with you changed him forever and he'll never stop caring about you, but he thinks it's best if you're not together right now. He said some things have to be done right or they just can't happen." He left out the fact that Lance had also said something about how, if Will still cared about her, too, he didn't want to be standing in their way if things changed.

Jen's eyes filled with tears. "He sent _you_ to break up with me... I can't believe it."

"Jen, I'm really sorry," Miles tried.

"It's not your fault," she whispered, trying not to cry.

"Ah!" He reached up and put his hand to his forehead. One of his visions had just hit him.

Jen blinked. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, and I'm sure you will be too," he said a bit too quickly, moving around her and heading for the stairs. "I have to go." He'd seen something that needed his immediate attention.

In his vision, Allie was upstairs in one of the bedrooms, crying.

"Miles?" Jen watched him dart up the stairs.

Upstairs, Allie heard footsteps outside of the door. She hadn't gone to the bathroom like she'd told Will; instead, she'd found a room where she could be alone to calm herself down before she went back out there. Hopefully, when she made a reappearance, they'd be done talking about the dead guy in the alleyway. She thought it was a spare room but wasn't sure. It didn't really matter _whose_ room it was, she figured. It wasn't like she was going through the closet or draws or whatever; all she was doing was sitting on the bed.

The door was a little ajar and, quickly wiping at her eyes with the back of her wrists so whoever was out there didn't see she was upset, Allie looked up at the gap to see who was coming.

It was Miles.

"Miles," she said, standing up.

"Allie, what happened?" He slipped into the room.

"Nothing."

"Liar."

She studied his face for a moment. "You _knew_ I was in here crying."

"I had a feeling," he admitted.

"Another vision?"

He nodded. "So what happened?"

"Miles," Allie said, "just forget about it, okay? I'm fine."

"Yeah, cuz you always go off by yourself during a party and cry when you're fine," he said sarcastically. "I know I do. Whole socializing thing is a real tearjerker."

"Okay, stop that," Allie gave in. "They found the body."

"What body?"

"Seriously?"

"Oh. That body." Right, the man she killed in self-defense; the one he'd decided not to call the police about. "Allie, they had to find the guy eventually."

"I'm scared, Miles," she whispered, her eyes darting both ways before focusing on her friend's face again. "I'm really freaked out about this."

"I know, but it's going to be okay, I promise."

"What if they figure out I was there?" She swallowed hard.

"Hey, listen to me." Miles reached out and tucked a piece of her hair behind one ear. "Everything's going to be okay. What happened wasn't your fault."

"Why are you sticking up for me?" Allie blurted. "I don't deserve it. What I did was terrible, and all this time I've only been concerned about how it effects _me_. What kind of horrible person..."

"Allie, stop." His hand was resting on her arm now and he squeezed it lightly to make sure he had her attention. "None of that is true and you know it."

"I didn't mean to hurt him, but I should have been more careful. I was so stupid, I... Maybe if I'd done something differently, that man would be alive right now."

"Yeah, and trying to hurt someone else," Miles added.

"Miles..."

"Besides, he tried to hurt _you_. That's more than enough. If he'd still been alive when I got there, _I _probably would have killed him."

Allie closed her eyes and sighed. "Miles, don't joke about that."

"How's it joking if it's true?"

Opening her eyes, she found herself just _staring_ at him. Something about the way he'd said that, so sure, so unwavering... It was like he knew nothing was going to hurt her on his watch. Sure, she had a hard time imagining _Miles_ as the knight in shinning armor type, charging in to save her (that was more _Will's_ forte), but the fact that he would have been willing to _try_, that dead-serious look on his face when he said that...

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Miles asked.

"I don't know," breathed Allie.

Miles wasn't sure why he did what he did next. He had a vague sense that Allie was trembling, and maybe he just meant to comfort her, but one way or another his arms ended up around her waist.

It felt nice, being held like that, being told everything was fine, even when she was convinced it wasn't. Allie, not thinking it through, lifted her arms and felt them lock around the back of his neck.

Next thing she knew, she was kissing him. She wasn't even sure if he'd kissed her first this time, or if she'd started it, or if they'd sort of just met in the middle.

Her breathing was heavier; she heard Miles moan twice, very softly, still clinging to her waist. She didn't remember opening her mouth, but she knew she must have at some point, cuz his tongue was in it.

Allie didn't want to let go, or for him to stop. She had the weirdest feeling, like she'd found something she'd forgotten was even missing, like she had slipped on a pair of running shoes on pure impulse, not knowing they were hers, only to find they fit perfectly.

They broke apart.

Miles rested his forehead against hers. "_Freya_," he whispered, almost forgetting that they were reincarnated; for that one special minute before reality sunk back in, it was as though they'd never even left Camelot.

"_Merlin_," came out of her mouth automatically.

Then it hit them.

Allie pulled herself out of his arms and stepped back. "Oh no."

"Allie, I-"

She shook her head. "This can't be happening."

"Allie-"

Gone really pale, she ran for the door without another word.

"Allie, wait!" Miles tried, his voice surprisingly hoarse all of a sudden.

She didn't wait; she was already outside of the room. She almost banged right into Marco.

_Oh, god..._ Allie wanted to throw up. _How long has he been standing there? _

Just then, before Marco could say anything, Will came up the stairs and noticed them. "Allie! There you are! I was starting to worry about you."

"I..." She didn't know what to say.

Was she supposed to fake a smile and act like she'd just come out of the bathroom, or was admiring the toddler pictures of him and Marco in the hallway or whatever, hoping that-even though this was the second time she'd kissed Miles-it would never happen again, and let Will live in total ignorance that she was behaving like a lying skank behind his back? Or was she supposed to break down crying (in front of Marco, who was still just standing there broodingly, no less!) and tell him the truth? That she didn't know why she did it, but she'd just been kissing her best friend, someone he also considered a good friend, someone he'd stuck up for back when Marco was pretending to be bad news so Mordred would trust him, in spite of the fact that she was _his_ girlfriend.

How could she possibly hurt him like that? And why hadn't she thought of this a few minutes ago, _before_ she let Miles stick his tongue in her mouth? How could she have thought it was right, being with him like that, when she, deep down, knew nothing could be more wrong? Nothing she could possibly think of could hurt Will more than being betrayed again. And by _her_, someone who, without ever really _saying _so, assured him she never would, that she wasn't like Jen.

"Allie, are you all right?" Will looked concerned now. "You're sort of... pale."

"I'm fine," she squeaked out, feeling lower than dirt.

"You're _not_ fine," Will said firmly. "Come on. Fresh air time." He grabbed her hand and led her downstairs, fully intending to bring her outside and have her sit down in a deckchair and take slow deep breaths until at least _some_ color came back to her face. She looked like she'd seen a ghost!

Marco watched them go, then turned and opened the door the rest of the way.

"H-hey, Marco," Miles said nervously.

"Get out of my room."

"Oh, is this _your_ room?" Miles reached up and rubbed his forehead. "I had no idea. _This_ is where I am? I thought I was getting a taco from the refreshment table. Wow, that was some black out!"

"Get _out_," Marco repeated.

"Okay." Miles grimaced and ran out of the room.

Finally alone, Marco sat down on the bed and lifted out the silver Order of the Bear medallion he wore under his shirt.

Looking down at it sadly, he groaned, "What do I do _now_, Dad?"


	9. Chapter 9

Despite the claim of popular opinion, playing hooky wasn't actually part of Marco's normal routine. It wasn't something he typically _enjoyed_ doing, either. True, he had cut class a few times when he was trying to get Mr. Moore to think he was up to no good, nothing but a jealous, troubled stepbrother who'd wanted to mess up Will Wagner's life just as much as _he_ did, but if given the choice, when he didn't have a fake bad reputation to uphold, a secret meeting for the Order of the Bear he needed to be at, or something else that demanded his immediate attention, Marco really wasn't one to ditch school.

That Monday, though, he did.

It wasn't like he was skipping to get high behind the Dairy Queen or anything. He _was_ standing outside the Dairy Queen, but all he was holding was an ice cold beverage, slurping up what was left of it.

The reason Marco wasn't in school was, to be frank, because he was torn and needed time to think. He didn't know what to do.

Saturday, he'd seen Allie and Miles kissing in his room. And he knew that they probably suspected, though they weren't_ sure_, he'd seen them.

On the one hand, he guessed he shouldn't have been surprised, considering legend had it that there had always been something between Merlin and the Lady of the Lake. But, problem was, when you left that out of it, and focused on them as just plain old Miles and Allie, it was pretty shocking.

Allie Pennington, former new girl, dating the quarterback, a good head on her shoulders, not particularly girly or prissy or emotion-driven (the way Jen could be sometimes), cheating on Will Wagner?

And with a guy like _Miles_, who, up until now, she'd had a pretty blatant platonic friendship with?

Allie just didn't seem the type.

From what he could tell, Marco believed she honestly loved Will. And not in the way Jen did, not like she loved him but wanted to be with someone else. Allie wanted Will. It was clear enough that this was the case. Miles didn't figure into that.

Now adding the Lady of the Lake and Merlin together deal back in, Marco felt troubled. Arthur had been betrayed by his queen before; luckily, this time around, he'd been okay with it. But there was no way he was going to be fine with _Allie_ doing the same thing. He wasn't over _her_. This could be the weapon Mordred hadn't found in Jen and Lance. There was no point in Mordred revealing them if Will wasn't heartbroken with his faith in everything and everyone shattered by it. If Allie and Miles continued on this path, they could be the handle he'd lost. He could use them to bring Arthur down.

Worse still, if Arthur didn't trust Merlin, that could be problematic later on. Merlin was always important to Arthur's becoming the king the world knew he could be. Merlin's destiny was intertwined with Arthur's, and if Arthur took him for a traitor and couldn't forgive him, the result could be disastrous. _Far_ more dangerous than a rift between Will and Lance.

There would be in-fighting between those in Arthur's closest circle.

If Allie had to choose between Will and Miles, even assuming she picked Will, as Marco thought she probably would, could she abandon Miles entirely, even as a friend? And if it was Miles she picked, that would cut off the Lady of the Lake _and_ Merlin from Arthur's circle, possibly for the rest of this lifetime.

They were two of the most powerful figures in his story. Without the Lady, Will couldn't be given Excalibur. Any sword in his hands became Excalibur, it was true, but the catch was, usually only_ if_ it was given to him by her, however indirectly. And much of its power was supposed, by the members of the Order of the Bear, to be transmitted from the fact that it was _Merlin_ the Lady of the Lake gave the sword to first, to pass it on to Arthur. That was how it had worked when they'd stopped Mr. Moore on the night of the big game.

Of course, she _could _just hand it to him herself, and it would most likely still become Excalibur, but _would _he take it from her if he no longer trusted her?

But what could he do?

He couldn't expose them to Will. That would just be doing Mordred's work _for_ him. Which was completely pointless.

He could try talking to them about it, but judging from the look on Allie's face when she'd left his room, she wasn't going to be too open to that. She seemed like she was still in denial. She clearly didn't, in her mind, have feelings for Miles, and whatever was going on was completely random to her.

Miles, though, was a different story. He knew something. Marco wasn't sure _what_, exactly, but he had a pretty good idea that_ his _feelings for Allie were real, not just impulse, like Miles actually _remembered_ her from their past life.

Standing there, trying to decide what he should do, what his father would have done in his place, he spotted Mr. Moore coming that way.

Marco turned his head, hoping Mr. Moore wouldn't recognize him. If this had been back when he was pretending to be a jealous stepbrother, he would have gone out of his way to make a scene, just so Mr. Moore _would_ notice he was skipping school. Now he wished he'd put on his hoodie that morning so he could hide his face better.

The last thing he wanted was Mr. Moore guessing that something was the matter with Arthur. Something that was leading the one kid at Avalon High who was in the Order of the Bear to take the day off and try to work it out.

A motorcycle pulled up and Anna got off.

She took off her helmet, shook out her hair, then looked down at what Marco now saw was a sidecar. There was a little girl, maybe about twelve years old, with dark hair seated inside it.

Mr. Moore smiled when he noticed them. "Anna!"

"Look who's here, Morgan!" Anna pointed at Mr. Moore.

The little girl ran over to him and hugged him.

Marco, watching this out of the corner of his eye, wondered why on earth any normal kid in their right mind would want to hug Mr. Moore.

Unless, he thought, she isn't normal. _Unless she's a reincarnation from Camelot, too. Somebody who was close to Mordred..._

"I missed you," the girl said, letting go of him. "Anna told me they'd replaced you at her school. I didn't know where you went." She blinked up at him. "I didn't know if I would ever see you again."

"Ah, yes, so I take it you've finally met Mr. Guy," Mr. Moore said, looking over Morgan's short shoulder at Anna. "What did you think of him?"

"Bossy. Kind of a crusty old dude, isn't he?" Anna said, remembering how he hadn't even let her sit where she wanted. "You were much more fun. You know, whenever I decided to show up." She shrugged. "Then again, you've been my favorite teacher since you helped my little sister after she hurt her ankle behind the bleachers and fainted." She looked down at Morgan. "Isn't that right, Sis?"

Marco felt a cold blast shoot up his spine; the hairs on the back of his neck stood up on end.

Back at Avalon High, Allie was having what felt like one of the longest days of her life, trying, to some degree, to avoid Miles.

To be fair, she wasn't completely aware that this was what she was doing. It was mostly a mix of denial and guilt doing her thinking for her. Maybe in her subconscious she thought if she could get through a day barely talking to him, he wasn't more important to her than he should be. Or she could have just been trying to spend more time with Will as some weird kind of atonement.

Or, just as likely, she could have simply been embarrassed. It _was_ awkward, being around your best friend, who'd had their tongue in your mouth barely forty-eight hours ago. When, to top it off, you were seeing somebody else.

She did this mostly without making it _too_ obvious, even to herself, but Miles wasn't stupid.

He didn't mind being left alone for a little while, and it wasn't as if he didn't have _anyone_ to talk to; Jen seemed to be talking to him more ever since he'd broken up with her for Lance (apparently she considered him more of a friend now), and then there was of course Nikki, who asked if he was coming over her house after school.

Yet he couldn't help but feel a little rejected.

He understood why he could never be with Allie, and he didn't grudge her wanting to stay with Will, but he hated the thought of her being different around him. He liked her the way she was. He liked how she was his friend even when he was difficult, acted like he didn't care, or just plain pushed her away (like he had when they'd first met in this life, before they knew about being reincarnated). What he _didn't_ like was the roles being reversed. It made him feel pathetic.

He didn't mean to be selfish. Truth was, he wanted to know how _she_ felt about it, too, but there was no way he could find that out if she stopped confiding in him.

Frankly, from his side of the story, he wasn't sure what hurt him _most_. Not remembering why and how he lost Freya the first time, or losing her again (as Allie) now and knowing _exactly_ why and how.

His only hope was that he didn't lose her completely. That she would still be his friend. He almost wished he didn't know about her being Freya, because maybe then none of this would have happened. Except, whatever her name was, whatever he did or didn't remember, wouldn't some part of him just _always _feel that way about her, even unknowingly? Cuz, either way, she was still the same person.

Then again, Miles thought, they _do_ say ignorance is bliss.

After school, he went over to Nikki's and tried to focus on teaching her what he knew about magic and writing at least _some_ of the report Mr. Guy would expect from them about their fake marriage and plastic baby (he hadn't _ever_ gotten anything lower than an A minus, and he didn't plan on starting now just because he was busy mastering his powers and helping the girl who their teacher thought was the reincarnation of Morgana do the same).

He'd taken his bike over there again instead of the car, not because he wanted time to think so much as he felt he had to be doing_ something_. Preferably something that involved either constant movement or concentration to keep from wanting to fly into a thousand pieces and go everywhere at once. Seeing as he'd been a warlock in his past life, he didn't want to take a chance on accidentally doing just that _literally_.

It was all the confusion, frustration, and tension building up inside him. He didn't know what to do with himself.

Luckily, working with Nikki was enough of a distraction that these feelings _lessened_, if they didn't totally go away.

When he got ready to leave, Nikki stood on the porch, next to the boat, and watched him getting on his bike and strapping his helmet under his chin.

"Miles, wait a sec!" She hopped down the porch steps and fast-walked diagonally across the broken brick path and the lawn, passed the wire fence and out onto the sidewalk.

"Yeah, sure." He turned and looked at her. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing." She smiled at him. "I just realized... I never really thanked you, did I?"

"For what?" he asked.

"For telling me about being reincarnated! For teaching me magic! I wouldn't have known any of it without you." Nikki reached out and put her hand on his shoulder. "It's been so amazing. And, besides, you have to admit, we make a pretty good team. Both having magic and everything."

Miles felt himself blush. "Yeah, I guess we do." He smirked at her. "Well, when you aren't almost accidentally incinerating me with a fireball, anyway."

She bent over and kissed him on the cheek.

If his face was already red from blushing, it went practically tomato-colored when she did that. Suddenly he couldn't even_ look_ at Nikki directly; it was like staring at the sun.

She was too pretty, he decided. It would be easier if she had crooked teeth or was cross-eyed or something.

"What was _that_ for?" Miles muttered shyly to his handlebars.

She shrugged. "I like you, that's all." Then she turned and ran to the porch, looking back at him over her shoulder.

Maybe it was for the best that Allie was with Will after all. His head was spinning as he pedaled down the street. Nikki liked him, he wasn't just imagining it. And he liked her, too. Or at least, he thought he did. Sometimes. When Freya wasn't on his mind. But he could stay just friends with Freya (Allie) and no one would get hurt.

One thing bugged him, though. How long was Allie going to keep avoiding him? Was she even actually avoiding him now, or had he mostly just seen it that way because he was uncomfortable about what had happened between them at Will's party, too? Was she okay? If he called her right now, would she talk to him? Not about what happened. Not even about being reincarnations of Merlin and the Lady of the Lake. Just _talk_ to him. Like she had before everything got so messed up. He sort of missed the way she'd been so sure of herself, back when they'd first become friends, ready to brush off all his sarcastic remarks with nothing but a smile and a short eye roll.

It was getting dark out, but his mom wasn't home, so she wouldn't know what time he got in. He could take his bike over to Allie's right then and see if she was willing to talk to him. He'd tell her they could pretend it never happened, just like before. He'd tell her anything she needed to hear to remember he was on her side, that he'd never do anything to hurt her or make her sad.

No matter what, he was going to be there for her. Because that's what friends did. Allie had told him that herself, back when she'd first figured out he saw glimpses of the future, when just the _word _'psychic' was enough to leave him petrified.

What he had to do was remind her of that and then try to move on.

His bike had a light in the front, but the second he got near Allie's house, he turned it off. It wasn't too bad; the lights from Allie's porch and a couple of distant street lights were enough for him to see by. Typically, though, he would have left the light on and even rung the bell to let her know he was coming. Not this time. Part of him was a little scared that, if she was outside and saw it, she'd go up to her room and pretend to be asleep. She knew that didn't really work with him (it hadn't worked when she'd said she wanted to be left alone the morning after she'd killed that man, after all), but she'd probably try anyway.

It felt weird, going up so quietly and crouching behind a bush as he took his cell out of his pocket.

Allie was, in fact, sitting on the porch. She had the Order of the Bear journal open in her lap, but it was pretty obvious she wasn't actually reading it. Her thoughts were somewhere else.

Miles called her.

She picked up her cell, which was on the floor by her foot, looked at the caller ID, closed her eyes, bit her lower lip, then sent it straight to voice mail.

Miles frowned and stepped out of the bushes. "Okay, now you're just_ ignoring _me!"

It was one thing, her spending less time with him at school, being a little weird around him. He could understand all that, even if it didn't make either of them (as far as he could tell) very happy, but this? Just flat out not talking to him? How did she know it wasn't something important? How did she know he hadn't had another vision, or just really needed to talk to her?

Allie nearly jumped out of her skin. "_God_, Miles!" She was up on her feet in less than a second, staring at him in shock.

"Sorry," he blurted. "But, for the record, if you don't want to talk to me, you can just _tell _me. I'm not a baby."

"No, _I'm_ sorry, Miles." Allie looked at her phone, then back at him. "You're right. I shouldn't have done that." She sighed. "Actually, there's a lot of stuff I shouldn't have done."

"I know," he said. "But most of that wasn't your fault."

"What are you doing here, anyway?" She folded her arms across her chest, not because she was acting tough or anything so much as because she was suddenly cold.

"I'll admit it," Miles said. "I care about being your friend."

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure, Allie." He crinkled his forehead. "What do you want to know?"

"If that's true, why do you keep things from me?"

"I don't," he told her.

"Yeah, you do." Allie clenched her jaw. "I may not be a national merit scholar like you, Miles, but I'm not an idiot."

"I never-"

"When you were telling me, a week after the big game, about when we were Merlin and Freya, you didn't tell me everything you knew."

"I told you, I don't remember how that turned out."

"No, but you do remember _something_. Something you didn't want to tell me then. You still don't." Allie gave him a hard look. "But if you think I'm so stupid I can't guess _now_..."

"Then_ say_ it, Allie," Miles said softly. "Tell me exactly what you think it is."

"I think you were in love with me in Camelot," she told him point blank. "With Freya, I mean."

"_Were_ being the operative word here," Miles pointed out, untruthfully.

"So it's true, then?"

He nodded.

"You _loved_ me?" The L-word felt strange in her mouth, especially in a sentence directed at _Miles_. She couldn't help the fact that her nose wrinkled automatically.

He shrugged.

"Is there anything else?"

"Yeah," he said. "I think you loved me, too."

She took in a deep breath. "Wow. Okay, this is getting a bit steep."

"We passed steep about five exits back," he retorted. "Now we're approaching the perpendicular."

Something about the way he said that made Allie crack a smile. "You don't still feel that way about me now, do you?"

_Yes!_ An annoying voice in his head cried. "No." He rolled his eyes. "I still have no idea what happened at that party. Or the other time, before that..."

"Well, we were both really freaked out," Allie tried.

"I wasn't that freaked out," Miles blurted without thinking.

"Wait. _What_?"

"But maybe I wasn't myself either," he invented quickly. He knew it sounded sort of pathetic, like an excuse he'd just pulled out of his butt, he just hoped Allie believed it anyway. "At the party, I _was_ a little worked up. Jen and Lance were driving me up a wall, and then I had that vision of you crying..."

"But we're okay now, right?" Allie whispered. "We don't... We're not... Me and Will, I can't..."

"It's okay, Allie." He forced a smile. "To tell you the truth, I'm really starting to like Nikki."

"You should have started talking to her sooner."

"Hey, you can't be too careful," Miles joked. "She _could_ have been a vampire."

Allie smiled. "Well, I have to go in."

"Why?"

"My parents are going to have dinner and watch Jeopardy. Attendance is mandatory."

Miles nodded. "Nice. Sounds like fun."

Allie swallowed a light laugh. "Do you want to come with me?"

He grinned. "Okay." Sounded better than having dinner alone at his house.

Mr. and Mrs. Pennington were happy to see Miles, as always. And, if they didn't already think he was amazing because he was the reincarnated Merlin live and in-person, they liked him because he knew almost as many answers on Jeopardy as they did.

Allie, as usual, rolled her eyes and grumbled about how _normal _families just watched Entertainment Tonight at dinnertime. But she couldn't help smiling over at Miles whenever he shouted out an answer and her parents looked all impressed; it was kind of amusing.

After Jeopardy, her parents called it a night and went upstairs, reminding them not to stay up too late since it was a school night and telling Allie to lock the door when Miles left.

"Just so you know, I really _am _sorry I avoided you all day," Allie told him, changing the channel. "That really wasn't the best way to handle things."

"And, in that case, I'm sorry for what I wrote about you on the wall in the Boys' bathroom."

"What?"

"Joke." He smirked to make it clear he was kidding.

She picked up a couch pillow and hit him with it. "Real funny."

"I was _kidding_, I swear," he laughed.

"Do you want some popcorn or something?"

"No, I probably should be getting back." He stood up.

"You might want to borrow an umbrella." Allie walked over to the sliding glass door and looked out.

"I can't go out in that." Rain was coming down in sheets. There was no way he was going to make it through all that on a_ bike_. "Can I crash on your couch for the night?"

"It's not real comfortable," she warned him. "My dad slept on it once and he had a bad back for a week. It's okay just sitting on it, but spend the night on it and you'll be sore in the morning."

Miles hated being sore when he had to get up for school, it threw off his concentration. And considering he'd have to take the bike back to his house early and change clothes, he wasn't crazy about the idea of doing so while being stiff as a board.

"You could share my bed," Allie suggested.

Miles felt his eyebrows go up in surprise. "Are you sure that's such a good idea?"

"Ew, no. Not like _that_!" She had the strangest desire to hit him. Really hard. Mostly to hide the fact that he'd made her blush. "I meant we could sleep head to foot."

He relaxed. "So, basically, I have a choice between sleeping on a lumpy couch or sleeping with your toes up my nose?"

"Take it or leave it." She started for the stairs.

"Any chance you have a clothespin or something I can borrow?" he asked teasingly, coming up behind her.

In her room, she loaned him a pillow and undid the covers on the bottom of the bed. "Goodnight," she said, switching off the lights, walking to the head of the bed, and pulling the covers around her.

Miles did the same on his side. "Can I tell you something?"

"Sure, anything."

"This is the first time I've ever been invited to sleep over a friend's house."

"Well, it's the first time I've ever had a friend spend the night."

"You're kidding."

"No," Allie yawned. "Being the new girl all the time, I never really..."

"Well, just don't expect me to paint your nails, or whatever it is girls do at sleepovers."

Allie giggled.

Miles sighed. "That rain's sure pounding out there."

"Yep."

"Goodnight."

"Goodnight," she said again.

Miles slept peacefully at first. In fact, he was the first one to fall asleep (Allie heard him snoring just before she drifted off). But then he started to dream. It was one of those dreams that wasn't _just_ a dream, but a memory. It was like when he had his visions, except it hurt a little less because he was asleep and it didn't have to hit him so hard to get his attention.

He was back in Camelot, as Merlin. He saw Freya. And Gaius, who told him Freya was cursed. It all started coming to him. Yes, Freya had been cursed. Just like Allie in this life, Freya had killed someone in self-defense, but that someone had turned out to be the son of a sorceress. The dead man's mother was so angry that she cursed Freya to turn into a murderous beast resembling a panther with wings every midnight. Gaius said she was too dangerous, he wanted her turned over to King Uther so that more innocent people wouldn't die.

But he (Merlin) couldn't let them hurt her.

Yes, this was how it happened.

How it ended.

Did they escape? Did Uther in an uncharacteristic turn events spare her? Maybe banish her to a lake?

No.

It came back a bit blurry in parts, but Miles understood: Freya didn't make it.

Freya was wounded fatally, killed. He'd tried to save her, but he'd been too late; the wound had already been inflicted and it was too deep for him to heal, magically or otherwise.

_He_ took her to the lake, because she'd told him she'd grown up near one. And then she'd died in his arms. Her last words were that one day she would repay him for all he'd done for her, she promised.

Then he'd sent her off in a boat which he lit on fire.

Setting the raft on fire when she was floating in the pool...the tears in his eyes when he saw her like that... Suddenly it all made sense. He couldn't block it out any longer.

But there was one thing he still didn't know. And that was _who'd_ killed her.

Whose sword had given her that wound that he couldn't save her from?

As if his racing mind and pounding heart were taking hold of the driver's seat so to speak and directing the dream, making it happen somewhat on demand, he felt it all rewind and zoom in.

There was Freya again, running. And suddenly she looked just like she did in _this_ life, not Camelot. She looked exactly like Allie Pennington, the steady, unchanged Camelot in the background and the old clothing notwithstanding.

_Allie running... The knights (looking uncannily like Avalon High's football team) chasing after her, a mean-looking man close behind them... The clock about to strike twelve, the warning bells ringing like crazy... _

"_Please let me go," whimpered Allie, caught between the knights and a dead end._

"_No one escapes from me," the mean-looking man said. _

_Then midnight struck and she changed into the panther-like beast. _

_One of the knights, the one right in the front, leading them, stuck her with his sword when she roared at them. _

_She limped backwards. _

_Finally some light fell on the face of the guilty knight and Miles saw his face. _

_He looked exactly like Will Wagner. _

_Arthur._

Arthur was the one who killed Freya.

No, it couldn't be true... That _couldn't_ be how it happened!

Sweating and moaning in his sleep, Miles felt someone shaking his shoulder. "Miles! Wake up! It's okay, it's just a bad dream."

Allie was standing over him. Light was coming in through the window, so he knew it must be morning.

"I remember," he said, his voice sounding all faint.

"Remember what?" Allie blinked down at him, confused. All she knew was that she'd woken up to his moaning and muffled cries and that it was time he left anyway, if he wanted to have time to get ready for school. "What are you talking about?"

"What happened to you."

"What, you mean in _Camelot_?"

Miles nodded slowly. "You didn't make it."

"What the heck does that mean?"

"You...died..."

"_What_?" Her eyes widened and she let go of his shoulder.

He sat up. His own eyes were blood-shot and swollen. "And I remember who killed you."

"Who?"

"You're going to think I'm out of my mind." Maybe it was best if she didn't know.

"Miles, tell me. _Who _was it?"

He found it difficult to meet her eyes but forced himself to anyway. "It was Arthur."


	10. Chapter 10

"No..." Allie said, shaking her head. "It _can't_ be."

"Allie, I'm sorry," Miles told her.

"You must be wrong."

"I'm not." There weren't many things Miles was sure about, but he had yet to have a vision (past or future) that didn't turn out to be true. He just _knew_ they were the truth somehow, whenever they hit him.

"Will wouldn't do anything to hurt me," said Allie, stubbornly. "Not now, and not then, either."

"Why would I make this up?" Miles demanded.

"I'm not saying you're making it up," she said. "You could have just, I don't know, _misunderstood_, what you saw. Or it could..." She had been about to say that it could have just been an ordinary nightmare, but remembering her own crazy King Arthur dreams, she didn't. Of course, she'd never dreamed anything as outrageous as Arthur _killing_ her, but she knew those kinds of dreams weren't 'normal' and thought she knew how Miles would feel if she tried to say his were.

"Allie, I know what I saw."

"That's impossible. I _liked_ him," she insisted. "When I first met him here, in this life. Why would I have liked him if he killed me in my past life?"

"Maybe you just don't hold grudges well," Miles suggested dryly.

"That man, the one I killed, I knew I didn't like him. It wasn't like that with Will. I-" She stopped herself again. She'd almost said she_ loved_ him. Now that she knew about her and Miles supposedly being in love back in Camelot, she felt uncomfortable telling him that she loved _Will_. "I liked him right away. I felt like I knew him and... Miles, I know he wouldn't hurt me."

"If things had been different," Miles agreed, "maybe not." Maybe Freya would have liked Arthur if his father hadn't had a warrant for her capture out, if she hadn't been cursed; maybe she would have chosen Arthur over Merlin-over _him_. Oh, who was he kidding? There was no _maybe_. This life alone was proof enough of that. Girls fell in love with Arthur real easy. It took a girl who'd been locked in a freaking _cage_ to look twice at him.

"It's not true," Allie mumbled. "It wasn't Will. _Arthur_, I mean. It had to be somebody else."

"You really don't believe me," Miles realized, feeling like he was being punched in the guts.

She closed her eyes. "No," she lied. Deep down, she believed him. She just couldn't bring herself to admit that.

Miles clenched his jaw. "Fine. Some friend you are." He got up off the bed and stormed across the room, aiming for the door.

"Miles!" Allie called after him.

"Don't listen to me," he snapped, his voice dripping with hurt and sarcasm. "Keep thinking Captain Everything is, and always was and always will be, perfect. See if I care."

"Wait, it's not like that, I just can't-"

"No, Allie." Miles had his hand on the doorknob. "Do whatever you want. Believe me, or don't. But I'm not going to wait around while you try and think up a good euphemism for calling me a liar to my face."

"Dammit, Miles!" she blurted out.

"I'm leaving."

"Well, good luck getting anywhere without your shoes." Allie knew it was a lame comeback, but she was too worked up to think of anything better.

Miles looked down and saw that he was still in his sock feet. His sneakers were by the bed. He started back across the room, only taking a couple of steps in that direction before Allie stopped him.

"Don't bother." She grabbed them and handed them to him.

"Thanks," he said peevishly.

"You're welcome," Allie snapped.

"Bye!"

"Bye!" She felt the most aggravating urge to burst into tears. Not because they were in a fight, and not because of what he'd told her he'd seen/remembered, but because he was _leaving_.

He was leaving, and for the first time she had no idea if he planned on ever coming back.

Miles slammed the door behind him.

Mr. and Mrs. Pennington, standing in the hallway, about to go downstairs and get their morning cups of coffee so they could start the day, blinked in semi-sleepy confusion at the blurry Miles that ran past them.

A few seconds later, they heard the front door slam.

Mr. Pennington knocked on Allie's door.

Allie opened it.

"So many questions..." her dad started.

Mrs. Pennington came over and patted her husband on the arm. "I'll handle this."

Allie grimaced and pushed back a lock hair away from her forehead.

"Was Miles here all night?"

"It was raining, we slept head to foot."

"Did we hear you shout the word 'dammit' a minute ago?"

"I'll put a quarter in the potty mouth jar," she sighed.

"Honey, what's wrong?" Mr. Pennington asked, a little more awake now that real concern was starting to get a grip on him. "That isn't like him to just leave without saying anything."

"He said _plenty_ to me." Allie crossed her arms and bit her lower lip.

"Sweetheart?" Mrs. Pennington could tell her daughter was trying not to cry.

"Mom, Dad, you'd tell me the truth no matter what, right?" She squeaked out, trying (and failing) to swallow a sob.

"Of _course_!" Mr. Pennington said.

"We would never keep anything from you," Mrs. Pennington swore.

"Even if it was about King Arthur?" Allie needed to know. She remembered that when they'd first moved here, they sure hadn't told her it was because of the prophecy. Or that it was Will. Even though they'd (or at least her mom, anyway) had a hunch. Given, she probably would have thought they were nuts if they'd told her they thought Will was Arthur before she met him, or even right after, before she got to know him and see the similarity between him and a certain famous leader of old Britain, but _still_.

"_Especially_," Mrs. Pennington said, "if it was about Arthur."

"Then tell me..." She unfolded her arms and put one shaking wrist on the doorknob to steady herself. "Is there _any _version of the King Arthur story where the Lady of the Lake is killed? By Arthur?"

Allie didn't show up at Avalon High that day. And while Miles pretended, at first, that he didn't care, that he barely _noticed_, he couldn't make himself not worry, fight or no fight. He was still mad at her, but that didn't count for much when he was sitting alone in the Biology lab, wondering if his missing partner was okay. After all, unless he was getting mixed up, Allie had practice with the track team today; it wasn't like her to miss that unless something major was going on.

And, well, yeah, he _guessed _telling her that her boyfriend had killed her in a past life qualified as pretty major.

Maybe he should have taken his own implied advice to Allie, from back when she'd wanted to tell Will about being King Arthur without waiting for her parents to come up with the findings of their frantic research, so he could protect himself from Mordred.

He could have waited a bit to tell her about Arthur being the one who'd killed her until he could do so without freaking her out.

But, then, what if that time had never come?

He knew how she felt about Will. She would _never_ want to believe what he'd done to her.

Heck, _he_ didn't even want to believe it.

He knew instinctively that, back in Camelot, he'd forgiven Arthur (after all, if he hadn't been completely ignorant of what he was doing when he killed Freya, he had to have at least had _some_ serious misconceptions about her nature-about what she really was); but that didn't make it easy to forgive him without a second's thought _now_. The pain still felt fresh, just cuz he'd blocked it out for so long. He _would_ forgive him (and Allie, for not believing him) eventually. It just wouldn't be easy. Then again, _nothing_ about being Merlin was (well, aside from the whole having magic deal; _that_ ruled).

But if Allie had been depressed after killing that man, if she started believing what he'd told her about Arthur, Miles was suddenly nervous about how she'd react. He didn't want her to fall apart again. Maybe there was something more he could have said before he'd left; something she might have even _wished_ he'd said. He could have added that Will seemed to be a mellowed out aspect of Arthur, that the chances of his literally killing her in this lifetime were probably pretty slim. Better yet, instead of just dropping the bomb in her lap and then getting mad when she didn't believe him, he could have said he would be there for her; he could have promised to try and protect her. But he hadn't. And he already regretted it.

Was it stupid that she didn't believe him? Yes. Was he hurt that after all they'd been through together his best friend wanted to have more faith in her boyfriend than in him? Yes. Well, yes and no. It made sense, and it was a pretty dumb thing to hold a grudge against her for, that she'd put her boyfriend (put _Arthur_) first, but it still stung like a sock in the jaw or a slap across the face.

Will and Jen were still lab partners. He forced himself not to stare, but Miles couldn't help noticing (out of the corner of his eye) that they did look sort of _right_ together. What with the calm way they sat, side by side, intent on their work and all. You could easily believe they'd ruled as king and queen together in a past life. It was really too bad it hadn't worked out in this one.

"Miles."

Miles heard someone call him as he was leaving the Biology classroom. He turned to see Nikki waiting for him in the hall. She was carrying her clarinet and a few books.

"Hey," he replied.

"Hey." Nikki smiled. "I just wanted to double check you were coming over after school again today. There's something I've _got_ to show you."

"What is it?" Miles asked.

Nikki cocked her head slightly. "_This _I think you're going to have to see for yourself."

"Is it magic?"

She nodded. Then pressed her lips together tightly in a playful sort of way. "But I'm not telling you anything else. You'll see it when you come over."

"Well, do I at least get a hint?"

Nikki laughed. "I told you it was magic, what more of a hint do you _want_?"

"Inside or outside?"

"Outside, of course. We, like, almost never do magic_ inside_."

"And with good reason," Miles said.

"You'll see it soon enough, I don't want to spoil it." She started going down the other end of the hall, opposite from the way he was headed. "See you then."

Miles wondered what it could be. He was even a little excited; most of the magic they practiced together in her backyard had been taught, as best he could manage, by him, Nikki had very little that was exactly _novel_ to add. Aside, that is, from maybe that one rogue fireball of hers. She had never really shown him anything new. Going by her coy 'wait until you see' expression, he knew it must be something pretty cool. He would have been even more excited if he wasn't so worried about Allie. It almost made him feel ashamed, that he could (and _did_) care so much.

The second the last bell rang, Miles copied down the homework assignment on the board of his final class for the day, stuffed his books and pens into his backpack, and headed straight for the parking lot.

He and Allie had had a fight. _Okay_. He was still kind of mad at her, even with all his worrying, and he wouldn't be exactly shocked if he showed up and found out she was still mad at him, too. But that didn't mean he couldn't check on her before he dropped by Nikki's house to see whatever it was she had to show him, right?

He was taking the car over. That way he wouldn't be pressed for time. He considered turning on the radio to drone out that nagging voice in his head that told him Allie would probably just ignore him (or, worse, tell him to get lost); instead, he just told his mind to shut up. It was bad enough getting visions that directed him, more or less telling him what he had to do by default, in a mostly subconscious manner. He _really _didn't need his conscious mind being a nag, too!

When he got to her house, he saw a light on in one of the windows he knew was in one of Mr. and Mrs. Pennington's in-home offices. Deciding to avoid bothering them if he could, Miles circled around, parked by a different curb than he usually did, and cut through the Pennington's yard. Then he tried the glass door on the patio, thinking it might be open.

It was, so he let himself in.

"Hello?" he called as he slid the door shut behind himself. He didn't want them thinking a burglar was strolling in (in broad daylight, no less) or whatever.

There was no answer. Nobody had heard him.

Finally he found Allie; she was sitting on the couch in the living room, turned so that she was facing away from the direction he was coming in.

"Ahem," he coughed.

She jumped a little and, recognizing his voice, quickly wiped at her eyes with the back of her wrist. "Hey, Miles."

He noticed her voice sounded slightly hoarse. "You're upset."

She shook her head.

"Did you think I was mad and wasn't coming back?"

Allie forced a smile. "No, course not." Well, partly, she _had_, but that wasn't the whole reason she was crying.

It was just the mix of everything. Knowing she was a reincarnation with a massive destiny to fulfill (or, at the very least, to help _Will _fulfill), knowing she'd killed a man and (so far) gotten away with it, having kissed her best friend twice and then later learning that they'd been lovers in their past life, and now finding out that her boyfriend had been the cause of her death in said past life. It was a lot to deal with. She believed Miles. And not because of what her parents said when she'd asked them about it, either. They hadn't actually found anything about the Lady of the Lake being killed by Arthur. She just realized she knew Miles wouldn't lie to her. She knew that he'd had to be telling the truth, but shock and wanting to be able to deny it had held back that knowledge. It was sinking in. All day, in fact, it had been sinking in. That was one reason her parents let her stay home; they saw she was a bit _too_ on the fragile side to make it through the whole school day. A mental health day, they'd called it. And they were in their offices at that exact moment, doing more research. They wanted to help her (and Will and Miles) get through this as best they could. Not, of course, that Allie had told them _all_ of it...

"I was mad," Miles said, "but that didn't mean I stopped being your friend."

"I wouldn't have blamed you," Allie said softly. "Most people probably wouldn't want to be my friend after that."

There were a million things Miles thought to say right then. He wanted to say he understood. He wanted to say that, really, her reaction was pretty natural, given how much she cared about Will; it wouldn't be easy for anyone to admit, even to themselves, that they'd been hurt by someone they were close to (in past _or_ present life). He even wanted to say he was sorry for yelling at her and leaving the way he had.

But that's not what he said.

With a smile, he said, "I'm not most people."

"I just don't know what to do," Allie told him.

Miles sat down on the couch beside her.

"I mean, do I _tell_ Will what you saw?" She let out a moan. "Or do I just act like nothing's changed? I mean, it kind of_ hasn't._ But, then, it has." She buried her face in her hands. "I'm not even making _sense _anymore."

Miles reached up and gently pulled her hands off of her face.

Allie rolled her eyes briefly, still trying to figure out what it was she was going to do about the whole Will-as-Arthur-killing-her problem, if anything.

For roughly two minutes, Miles was still holding her hands. He had only meant to take them off of her face, but forgot to let go afterward. Thinking she was still distracted, he tried to pull his hand away from hers without her noticing.

As if it were the most natural thing in the world, Allie's hands shot out automatically and grabbed it again.

Their eyes met.

Allie blushed and, letting his hand go, sat on her own hands to keep them from doing that again.

Miles was having a hard time keeping a straight face after that. He didn't want her to think he wasn't taking her whole past life memory crisis here seriously, but this annoying grin kept turning the corners of his mouth up no matter how many times he forced them back down.

After that, they just talked and completely lost track of time.

When Mr. and Mrs. Pennington came out of their offices, bleary-eyed and yawning, around dinnertime (which, typically, they only had a semi-actual time for because they wanted to keep their daughter's life routine as normal as possible, plus also they didn't like missing Jeopardy, otherwise, being so into their studies, they'd probably forget to have regular meals half the time), they were_ still_ talking.

"See? I _told_ you he'd come back," Mrs. Pennington whispered to her husband. "Didn't I tell you?"

"Yeah, you told me," Mr. Pennington had to admit. "So I take it Miles is eating with us again tonight?" He didn't sound like he minded at all. In fact, even though the reincarnation of Merlin had been over their house countless times since becoming friends with their daughter, he _still _sounded sort of excited about having such an important houseguest.

She shrugged. "I guess so."

Allie noticed her parents standing there. "Mom, Dad... _Anything_?" she asked.

They shook their heads. "You?"

"I looked through some of the books you left out here earlier. I couldn't find anything. But then I never found anything about the Lady of the Lake being a Druid, either."

"Honey," Mrs. Pennington said, "no matter what we find, that won't change what happened. And Will is one of the most wonderful young men I've ever known. I'm sure he was just as wonderful when he was Arthur; history wouldn't have remembered him so fondly otherwise. I know it hurts, but you have to think of the context as well."

Miles felt squirmish and awkward, but he added, "She's right, Allie. Remember what I told you, about magic not being allowed in Camelot back then? Arthur didn't know a lot about it because of that. I don't even think he knew_ I_ had magic. That doesn't make what he didn't any less wrong, but... Maybe he just wanted to protect his people."

"I think I understand that," Allie said. "It's just too much."

"I know," Miles agreed.

They had dinner and all four of them talked about it some more, until there really wasn't anything left to be said. Arthur/Will had killed Freya/Allie in a past life. There was nothing they could do about that. It wasn't fair to put the blame on Will for something he couldn't even remember because it happened over 1500 years ago, as Mrs. Pennington was quick to point out.

Allie began to feel a little better as the conversation progressed.

When they were done, Miles and Allie loaded the dishwasher together.

"Couldn't you have just used magic to make all the dishes fly in by themselves?" Allie asked, as she scraped some bits of corn off the side of the last plate before putting it in.

"Some unwanted exploding might have occurred if I'd done that," Miles teased. "So maybe next time."

Allie shut the dishwasher and walked outside with Miles; it was dark out, but the night was clear, not a cloud in the sky. "Thanks for coming back."

"You're welcome, Allie."

"You're a good friend, Miles." She hugged him.

"I am, aren't I?"

She began to pull away, letting go of him. "I think that was the part where you were supposed to say I was a good friend, too."

"Yeah, I guess you're all right." He almost reached up and touched the side of her face, but his hand kind of ended up just hovering next to it instead.

She laughed.

Before he could stop himself, Miles bent forward and kissed Allie once very quickly on the lips.

Allie blinked rapidly.

"Sorry. I won't do it again," he told her. "I just... I just wanted to see what it was like when you weren't on an emotional high. Just once."

"Miles," Allie whispered, "you don't..."

He shook his head. "No, I don't. And I know you don't. That's okay." He made himself look her straight in the face even though his felt like it was on fire. "The truth is, I'm just glad you're alive and that we found each other again. Even as just friends."

Allie felt so stupidly like her heart (her heart that should be totally loyal to _Will_) was breaking when he turned and walked away. When he'd left earlier that day, under very different circumstances, she'd been upset enough. This shouldn't have been worse. It just..._was_...

Secretly watching them, Mr. Pennington whispered, "So _why _did everyone look at me like I was certifiable when I asked if she liked him when he first showed up here?"

Mrs. Pennington sighed sadly. "Because she didn't know it yet."

Mr. Pennington winced. "Yikes. Poor Will."

"Poor _all _of them," concluded Mrs. Pennington bleakly.

In the car, Miles blinked back tears. He was _not_ going to start crying. Not when, maybe this time, everything was going to work out fine.

He had the strangest feeling he'd forgotten something he meant to do, but couldn't put his finger on _what_.

Well, what did it really matter?

It would have mattered, probably, if he'd realized then that it wasn't _what_ he'd forgotten so much as _who_. It had completely slipped his mind that he was meant to be at Nikki's house that afternoon.

Meanwhile, Nikki had waited and waited, only to be disappointed when he never came.

What she'd been going to show him was that she'd learned to scry in her birdbath outside when it was full of rainwater. She could make it show her things that were happening elsewhere. She wondered if that had been one of her talents in her past life (supposedly as Morgana) because it felt kind of natural now. In all her excitement, she had been waiting, holding it in, to share it with Miles. There was no one else she thought deserved it more. He was like a mentor to her, almost, even though they were the same age. She'd been almost giddy, thinking how _impressed _he would be when she showed him.

It had gotten dark when she finally broke down and decided to use her scrying to see where Miles was.

Maybe something bad had happened to him, Nikki thought anxiously, I hope he's okay.

Then, looking down at the clear water before her, she saw what he was up to.

He was with that friend of his, that Allie Pennington girl who was dating William Wagner. Neither of them looked hurt or like they were in the middle of an emergency.

She couldn't hear what they were saying, but she could see them, and she saw him kiss her.

A glare formed on her face. How _could_ he! How could he do that to her? Just blow her off, after all this time he'd acted like he cared, like maybe he...

She suddenly found that she hated him. It was stronger than she expected, this hateful feeling, and for a second she wondered if part of her had been _waiting_ for an excuse to hate him. But of course that was ridiculous. She had liked Miles. And he betrayed her for no reason. Not to mention, with a girl who was dating the quarterback. _She_ liked Miles (or she _had_, before this) but if he thought Allie was going to leave King flippin' Arthur for him, he must be on freaking _crack_!

There was a lump in her throat. She'd really thought Miles...that her and him...that they... But now...

The water showed her something else.

She looked again.

It was that ice cream man, Mr. Moore, who'd used to teach at Avalon High.

A cold smile replaced the glare. _He_ believed in the reincarnation thing, too. She just might still have the crumpled paper with his number on it in her jeans if she dug through the dirty clothes hamper.

Maybe Mr. Moore was right; maybe they _did_ have an enemy in common.


	11. Chapter 11

As soon as Miles saw Nikki walking, just ahead of him, through the front doors of Avalon High, he felt awful. Because, of course, he instantly remembered exactly what he'd forgotten to do yesterday.

He'd forgotten to go to Nikki's; to work together on their school project, practice their magic, and see whatever it was she'd had to show him.

Whatever Allie had said last night, about him being a good friend, he clearly wasn't. Or at least, he hadn't been to poor Nikki. He couldn't imagine how mad she must be at him right then.

"Nikki?" he managed, somewhat feebly, coming up behind her.

She turned and smiled at him. For about half a second there, she'd looked as mad as he expected her to be, but then that smile had come up and completely replaced her hurt expression.

In fact, Miles almost wondered if he'd just _imagined_ that brief flicker of anger in her. But, then, if even if he hadn't, she was probably more than entitled to it. "I am so, so sorry. I got caught up somewhere else late yesterday and it just slipped my mind. I feel terrible."

Nikki patted him on the shoulder. "It's okay. Things happen. I totally understand."

Miles felt a rush of relief. "So you're not mad at me for not coming over yesterday?"

She blinked, like she was shocked he even _thought _that. "Oh _gosh_, no! Of course not." Her voice was totally sweet and innocent.

"If you want, I could come over today instead," Miles offered.

"That would be great," Nikki said, biting back a smirk. "I have a feeling you're going to be _really _surprised."

"Great." Miles grinned. "See you then."

"Wait." She still had his arm. "I thought maybe you could walk me to my locker."

"Why?"

She went a little red. "Well, see, there's this guy, from band class, and he just doesn't seem to _get_ the hint that I'm not interested in him at _all_..."

Miles felt oddly protective. "Is he bothering you?"

"A little," Nikki said. "But, I thought, maybe, if he saw me walking arm-in-arm with a certain reincarnated warlock, he'd move on." She raised her eyebrows playfully.

"Oh, a _reincarnated warlock_," Miles stated pretend-pensively. "Great choice. Do you know any?"

Nikki's lower lip curled slightly. "Pretty please, Miles?"

"You don't have to ask me twice." Not only was she not mad at him, she wanted him to walk her to her locker so that some clodpole could see she wasn't available! Miles definitely hadn't been expecting this; he was seriously flattered in addition to being relieved.

When they reached her locker, Nikki opened it and hung up her coat and her clarinet case. Then she acted like she was examining a miniature calendar she had hanging up on the inside of the locker's door.

Really, though, she was using the sliver of mirror to the left of the calendar to watch for Allie Pennington coming down the hallway.

Sure enough, barely a minute later, Allie was headed their way.

Nikki shut her locker and kissed Miles on the cheek (a little more lingeringly than she had the last time, back when she'd been sincere about it) when she was sure the trampy Pennington girl was watching.

Miles looked down at his feet, his face gone red. He hadn't been expecting her to do that. Nikki sure did forgive a guy who'd disappointed her pretty thoroughly.

Allie felt sick to her stomach. It was stupid, she knew, to feel even that slightest twinge of jealousy over Miles, even if he _had_ kissed her last night. It wasn't anything that lasted, after all. It wasn't meant to work out between them. In one lifetime she'd _died_, and in the current one she was with someone else. That had to tell them _something_. There was no way it was meant to last; their _friendship_ was, definitely, but not anything more than that. Plus, she loved Will. She really and truly did. Even if he _had _killed her in Camelot. The girl her best friend liked giving him a peck on the cheek in front of her shouldn't have made her feel like she'd swallowed a heavy stone that was weighing her stomach down, making her want to hurl and just drop to the floor at the same time. This was stupid. Still, knowing that didn't stop her from feeling miserable.

"Hey, Allie!"

She looked over her shoulder to see Will behind her.

"Hey." She hated how deflated and faint her voice sounded.

"You weren't here yesterday," he said, coming over and putting his arm around her shoulders. "And you didn't pick up the phone last night." (That was true, she'd had her cell on vibrate, she'd been too busy talking to her parents and Miles to bother with incoming messages, and her parents practically _always_ unplugged the house phones when they were busy researching something and weren't expecting any important calls.) "Are you okay?"

She nodded. "I'm fine, Will." _I just found out you killed me in our past life and I'm still struggling with unwanted, for lack of a better term, _romantic_ feelings for _Miles_, of all people, and I can't tell you about either problem, or the fact that I recently committed murder in self-defense, cuz I don't think you'd understand, that's all..._ "I was feeling a little sick."

"Oh." He gave her shoulders a comforting squeeze. "You okay now?"

Why was Will so nice to her? He was the best boyfriend ever, and she was so ungrateful! She was a horrible human being. She glanced over at Miles and Nikki; Nikki was causally, yet overtly, hanging on his arm and standing close to him.

"It comes and it goes," said Allie, squirming out of Will's grasp. "We should get to class."

"Yeah," Miles said, taking a few steps away from Nikki. "We can't keep Mr. Guy waiting."

"Speaking of which, if you're okay now, Allie," Will told her, "we have to go over our project for his class. We haven't really had as much time together to work on it as I thought we would."

"I'm sorry," Allie said. At least, that much, she could say whole-heartedly. "My parents have just been going over a lot of King Arthur stuff lately."

"Hey, it's cool." Will gave her an understanding nod. "Can't be too careful with the Lady of the Lake."

"Glad you think so _now_," Miles mumbled at the floor, unfortunately pretty audibly.

"_Miles_!" Allie hissed, shooting him a warning glare. That comment was _way_ inappropriate.

Nikki shifted her stare from Miles to Allie, then back again, feeling strangely satisfied. This web was even more tangled than she'd been coming to realize. Her plan, the one Mr. Moore and Anna had helped her with, was going to work out just fine. It would be justice both for what Miles had done to her as Merlin in their past life (being Nimueh instead of Morgana really put a different spin on things) _and_ for what Allie and Miles had done in this one. And Miles clearly had _no_ idea she was up to anything (poor Merlin always had been something of a sucker for a pretty face, hadn't he?). That was pretty hard to beat.

"I'm lost. _What_ are you guys talking about?" Will asked, laughing nervously.

"Nothing," Allie said quickly. Maybe she _would_ tell Will about Miles having that vision, that memory of their past life, but not right this second. There was no need for him to know immediately. "Come on, let's just get to class."

"Okay." Will shrugged.

Nikki sighed, faking as much uncaring bafflement as Will truly had.

None of them, as they walked off, saw Marco, hidden in plain sight, leaning discreetly on the side of the row of lockers. He had been following Nikki and heard the whole conversation between her and Miles, even before they got to their locker. Being a member of the Order of the Bear made him good at eavesdropping; goodness knew he'd done enough of it on Will, back when he was trying to determine for sure if his stepbrother was the reincarnation of King Arthur. And after that, too, when he was protecting him.

Something wasn't right here. Nikki was definitely the reincarnation of someone important from Camelot, but he had the sense that Miles was underestimating her. _He'd_ seen that one flickering moment when she looked angry with Miles before changing her tone and expression, insisting she was fine. Miles-_Merlin_-thought he could trust this girl; Marco wasn't so sure. Mr. Guy was in the Order, too; maybe _he_ could enlighten him on what was going on here. He figured he should also tell him about Mr. Moore being friends with Anna and her little sister while he was at it.

After school, Marco decided.

As soon as classes were over for the day, he'd approach Mr. Guy for help. This was rapidly getting beyond him.

And so Marco waited. Very impatiently. Through most of his classes, he barely listened, looking frequently at the clock hanging on the back wall in most of the classrooms (except, in History, where the clock was actually at the _front_, above the teacher's desk, so, in that one class at least, he could pretend to be paying _some_ attention).

In Mr. Guy's class, he tapped his fingers on the cover of his unopened notebook until Mr. Guy told him to knock it off.

Which he did, immediately.

Allie shifted in her seat to look over at him. "Marco?"

"What are you looking at?" he snapped.

She hadn't seen him this darkly agitated, or heard him use such a harsh tone with anyone (including herself), since Mr. Moore got the sack and he was able to drop his desperado generic 'bad boy' act.

She turned her head and glanced at Will to see if he noticed, but he had his attention on his notebook and it appeared that he hadn't heard what stepbrother said. Either that, or he didn't realize Marco was talking to _Allie_.

Mr. Guy arched an eyebrow and then went back to writing something on the board. He wasn't at all surprised when, after class, everyone except for Marco and Allie cleared out.

Marco kept waiting for Allie to leave, too, but she knew something was up and wouldn't.

"Aren't you getting a ride home with my stepbrother?" he asked point blank.

"He won't leave without me," Allie said, not budging.

"You might as well say whatever's on your mind, Marco," sighed Mr. Guy. "I don't think our Lady of the Lake over here has any intention of leaving us."

"She's not in the Order," Marco said.

"My parents might as well be," Allie shot back. "They have the book."

"So?"

"So, I'm not leaving without some answers." She lightly cracked the knuckles on her right hand against the side of a desk. "What's wrong? Is Will in danger again?"

"It's about Miles," Marco gave in. "_Merlin_."

Allie's face drained of all color. "You didn't..."

"See the two of you exchanging spit in my room during Will's party?" Marco asked, not exactly harshly, just like he was stating a fact. "Yeah. I saw that. I just didn't tell anyone. But that's only part of it."

"Good heavens! I somehow doubt Will would enjoy hearing the details," said Mr. Guy, looking pretty interested in them himself, for what it was worth.

Allie wanted to cry. "I'd never hurt Will like that. What happened with Miles didn't mean anything, I was just really freaked out. It was _nothing_."

Mr. Guy wasn't convinced. "You've always been important to him, Freya. Nothing that happens between you and Merlin is ever 'nothing'." He held up a hand, noticing Allie was about to tearfully cut in. "You know, you're the first thing he lied to me about without hesitation in Camelot. He'd used to think twice before lying to me. But that didn't apply when it came to you. You _cannot_ be 'nothing' to each other. Your natures are incapable of it."

"He's my friend," Allie said. _My _best_ friend_. "That's all."

"I had hoped such would be the case in this life," Mr. Guy told her, a little sadly. "Especially seeing you with Arthur."

Marco was trying to get a word in edgewise. "Listen, Mr. Guy, that's not really what I need to talk to you about. There's more."

"There is _not_!" Allie cried, thinking he was still referring to her cheating on Will with Miles.

"Please shut up for a second, will you, Allie?" Marco said gruffly.

"My hopes were partly that, in Miles working with Nikki, along with helping Morgana to stay on the right path, he might become interested in her and avoid compromising what Freya and Arthur (that's you and Will, naturally, Allie) have in this life."

Marco could hardly tell _Mr. Guy_ to shut up, but he was absolutely _aching _to interrupt him. "Mr. Guy! That's just _it_! I'm worried Nikki has something up her sleeve."

"Well, they eventually became bitter rivals-strong enemies-in Camelot, but there is no reason I can think of for Morgana to hate Merlin _here_."

"Nikki," said Marco slowly and sharply, "is _not_ Morgana."

Mr. Guy frowned at him, confused. "Of course she is."

"No, Anna is Morgause, and Morgan is Morgana."

"Who's Morgan?" Allie asked.

"Anna's little sister." Marco's face was dead serious. "It _has_ to be her. I'm as sure of it as Will being Arthur."

"Anna has a sister?" Mr. Guy swallowed hard, looking pained.

"Yes, and she's friends with Mr. Moore."

"_Mordred_," mumbled Allie.

"But Nikki's nightmares..." Mr. Guy mulled in shock.

"...Don't make her Morgana's reincarnation," Marco finished.

"Then, from what Miles has told me about her magic, she must be..." Mr. Guy was trying to figure it out. "No, she _can't_ be. But she must..." He closed his eyes. "Nimueh." She always _was_ good at escaping detection, no matter what the circumstances.

"Nimueh," Allie repeated. "Is that a bad thing? Nikki being Nimueh?"

"Possibly," Mr. Guy had to confess. "That is, if she's angry with him."

"I think she is," Marco insisted. "There was something not right about her today."

"When is he going to see her again?" Mr. Guy wanted to know.

"Today, after school."

Allie's eyes flashed at Marco. "It _is _after school. If he's not there already, he'd be on his way to her house right now."

Mr. Guy's face fell, horror-stricken. He put one trembling hand to his forehead. "He's gone to Nimueh's home, with her in a potentially vengeful mood."

"Mr. Guy?" Allie reached out like she intended to grab his arm. The poor teacher looked like he might sink to the floor and she wanted to be able to steady him if he started to fall.

Blinking back what Allie and Marco were both positive had to be tears, Mr. Guy choked out, "That poor boy."


	12. Chapter 12

Miles was soaking wet when he turned up on Nikki's porch.

Some remaining rain still fell, blowing onto the porch and splattering against the side of the boat. Mostly, though, it was letting up. It had come down harder as he'd been coming up the path.

The bricks slippery, he'd had to go slow and get even wetter to avoid getting a foot stuck in a now muddy gap and twisting his ankle.

The funny thing was the weatherman had predicted clear skies for that part of the afternoon; the rain, along with the dark clouds it'd come out of, had been pretty random.

He was just about to ring the doorbell when suddenly a hailstone bounced off the side of the boat and hit his arm. (Which was freaky as well as sightly painful, considering it _wasn't _actually hailing out, just raining, and this single stone had come seemingly out of thin air.)

And the hailstone wasn't the _only_ thing that hit him; a vision came too.

"Gah!" Miles groaned, crinkling his eyelids as they slammed shut.

_The beautiful woman with dark hair and blue eyes, the one he'd seen in his visions of his past life once before, who'd said they could have ruled the world together... Smirking at him, setting down a goblet... "Back again so soon, Warlock?" _

Something was urging him to turn and run. It was stupid; of course there was nothing to be worried about here, at Nikki's house. Nikki was his friend. He was helping her with her magic; she admired him, and he liked her. Why would he want to run from that? Why on earth would he be scared of anything _Nikki _might do? Was it because she really was Morgana in their past life and he somehow subconsciously remembered all the terrible things she'd done?

"_The Old Religion does not care who lives and who dies!" she screamed, her eyes darkened with sudden intensity. "Only that the balance of the world is restored." _

Then it changed. It wasn't the past anymore, it was the future.

_Allie, holding the staff Miles had reclaimed from Mr. Moore the night of the big game... Looking at someone with her jaw clenched and her one free fist balled, anger and hurt beyond description in her eyes... "You should not have killed my friend." _

"Whoa," Miles muttered, shaking his head, trying to rid himself of the headache the double vision gave him.

"Miles!" The door swung open, Nikki standing there, grinning, even though he'd never actually rung the bell, having been too busy clutching his head and groaning in pain.

"Hey!" He forced back a deep grimace.

"You're _soaked_," Nikki noted. Really, though, she'd known that even before she opened the door. Not only had she seen him via birdbath scrying, she'd also used her powers to call the rain in the first place; it had kind of been easier even than she expected.

"Yeah." Miles willed his teeth not to chatter. Cool mentor warlock wizards guys didn't show up for magical practice with signs of mild hypothermia, did they? That would kind of kill the mysterious, untouchable edge a little bit, wouldn't it?

Strangely, he found himself thinking about Allie. He could have shown up at _her_ house covered head to toe in mud and unidentifiable _sludge_, let alone _rainwater_, and dripping and she would have treated him no differently.

Well, okay, she _might_ have laughed her whole head off, but, yeah, once she got over it, no differently.

"Come in, come in." Nikki held the door open wider.

Miles shivered and kicked off his sneakers. He knew he was probably going to have to put them right back on again, if it stopped raining and whatever Nikki planned to show him was outside, but he didn't think a second or two to peel back his damp socks and wiggle some feeling back into his toes was _too_ much of an indulgence.

Nikki disappeared into the kitchen and came back holding a stainless steel mug. "Here."

"Thanks." He put the rim close to his nose and sniffed. "What is it?"

"Tea," Nikki said, one side of her mouth curling up like she was holding back a big smile.

Miles liked hot tea. Sometimes he drank it on cold nights after finishing his homework. And he was glad to have some now, chilled to the bone as he was. Suspecting nothing out of the ordinary, definitely nothing _evil_, he took a sip. It warmed him. He began to gulp the rest down.

Pretty good, he thought. He'd have to ask Nikki what brand she used. His mom tended to just buy tea based on how nice she thought the box looked, so it wouldn't hurt to have another opinion the next time some grocery shopping had to be done. Especially if his mom wasn't home again and he had to do it by himself.

Then, all at once, something went wrong. Something in his throat burned; it felt like his windpipe was closing up on him.

Letting out a raspy gasp, Miles put his hand to his throat. It got worse. He _clawed_ at his burning throat with his fingertips. He looked at Nikki, eyes widened, as if seeing her as she really was for the first time. He'd been betrayed. She'd done something to him; doctored up the tea. Drugged him, maybe. Or, worse, poisoned him.

His knees knocked together.

Nikki's smile was full and unrestrained now.

Miles fell to the floor, still gasping, eyes still staring (now upwards) at her. _How could you, Nikki? _Even if she really was as mad at him as she'd claimed not to be, that didn't give her the right to try and _kill _him!

He struggled for words. Finally, something vaguely resembling, "Morgana..." came out in a just barely audible croak.

"Oh, that's _right_," Nikki said, putting her hand to her heart. "You don't know."

He would have blinked, but he was scared that if he closed his eyes he'd never open them again. His muscles were already tightening up on him; there was so little he could move. His pinky finger on his right hand, if he strained. The rest of him was limp and numb.

"I'm not Morgana."

No, of course she wasn't. Miles was sure of that now. Though, really, _Morgana_ might have more cause to hate him, more reason to poison him, than whoever Nikki thought she was.

"_I_ am." A little girl walked out of another room, looking down at him.

"Miles," said Nikki. "Meet Morgan."

The little girl bent down next to him. "Not so fun being poisoned, being tricked by someone you think is your friend, is it?"

Miles couldn't say anything. All he could do was gape helplessly.

"Come now, Merlin," Nikki said. "Don't look so upset. You had to know I'd get my revenge on you one day. Mr. Moore told me everything. How you killed me so your precious friend Gaius could live? And after I was so good to you, too, allowing your mother to be safe, like you wanted. Striking me with lightning? I never knew you had it in you. Then, you're good at that. You're very good at pretending, Miles." She paused, and for a second there, Miles honestly believed there was more hurt than pride in her voice. "But did you seriously think I wouldn't find out about you and Allie?"

"You didn't really think she was that stupid," Morgan chimed in, "did you?"

"Will's going to find out eventually too, you know, not that it'll matter." Nikki shrugged. "Arthur is too weak. Mr. Moore is the reincarnation of a powerful Druid. He can help us with magic better than you or the silly Lady of the Lake ever could. Will is useless to us. He might have been born of magic in Camelot, but there isn't a drop of practical magic in him."

Miles wanted to scream out that she was being brainwashed; she and Morgana _both_ this time. Mordred wouldn't help them; he'd only use them to benefit himself. Oh, he might just keep Morgana alive, because his liking for her was genuine, but Nimueh? What reason did Mordred have to help her keep reaching her potential once he'd gone ahead and plunged the world back into the Dark Ages? He'd use her to off him-to rid this lifetime of Merlin-then dispose of her. Miles was sure of it.

Or he'd keep her as one of his followers.

But could Nimueh ever be a follower forever? Wasn't she too strong for that? _Nikki_ was, he thought, Nimueh's reincarnation or not. She would follow, to get what she wanted, but eventually she'd try to take over. He understood that now. Maybe, all along, she'd _wanted_ a reason to hate him. Maybe she'd known the world couldn't hold two people with such powerful magic.

Would what she'd given him really kill him? Would he live on as something else? Be reincarnated as something else, maybe?

What if he never saw Allie or Will again? What if, in his next life, he never found them?

That would be bad.

It would be worse for Allie and Will, left behind in this lifetime, though. If he lost consciousness, pretty soon, he wouldn't know what was happening. If he lost them, he'd feel no pain, not if he didn't remember them. But they'd remember him, they'd be sorry for him. Will, his friend, would be upset. Will, who'd never know, unless Allie told him someday, how he betrayed him, kissing his girlfriend behind his back.

"Is he still fighting it?" Mr. Moore, followed by Anna, came out of the same room as Morgan had.

Of _course _he was still fighting it! Miles was struggling now to keep his eyelids from closing. They weren't _wide_ open anymore, but he'd keep them open period as long as he could.

"Goodbye, Emrys," Mr. Moore said, bending down beside him.

He tried to use magic to put feeling into his body again, he tried to squirm away as soon as he felt some of his nerve endings again. But Morgan held him in place, and the feeling went as quickly as it'd come. He was completely paralyzed again. Even his pinky finger didn't move at his will now. Merlin was completely under Nimueh's control now; he couldn't bat an eyelash unless _she_ willed it.

It wasn't just drugs or poison he'd swallowed down without thinking, there had to of been _magic_ in that tea, too.

Mr. Moore's hand came down over his eyes, closing his eyelids as easily as flicking off a light-switch.

Darkness swallowed him up, he was trapped within himself, and Miles knew no more.

About an hour and thirty minutes later, Allie pushed past a nurse who'd denied her entry into the Intensive Care Unit.

"Allie!" Mrs. Pennington, standing right behind her, protested. She understood the urgency, but she didn't like to see her daughter being rude to strangers who were just doing their jobs, either. Being the reincarnation of the Lady of the Lake didn't mean Allie had free license to barge in.

"Mom, I don't care about _Image_ right now!" Allie snapped, just barely holding herself back from breaking out sobbing.

'Image' was basically just her parents' weird word for 'being nice in public, smiling at people, being friendly even to complete and total strangers, is a house rule and we will be very, very disappointed in you and proceed to tell you why in mind-numbing detail once we get home if you break said rule'. Allie was usually pretty good about it; they hadn't really had to firmly use the I-word on her since she was maybe eleven or twelve and rolled her eyes during a parent/teaching conference, annoyed that, yet again, another teacher had no idea who the 'new girl', whose parents she was currently talking to, even _was_.

But right now they could I-word her all they wanted and it didn't matter. _Miles_ mattered. She had to see him. She had to see that he was okay, though she knew he couldn't possibly be.

People who were 'okay' didn't generally wind up in the ICU.

After they'd realized the danger Miles was in, going to see Nikki (Nimueh), Marco had gone over to Nikki's almost straight away. Will (who'd been waiting in the school parking lot for Allie) let him take his car, and the rest of them had waited behind at Avalon High. Allie had wanted to go with Marco to Nikki's house, but Mr. Guy and Will both told her she had best stay with them. It would be quicker for Marco to get in and out on his own, then back to them so they could know what was going on.

But Allie couldn't help feeling agitated. She'd paced the school's hallways and outside steps, back and forth. If Miles was in trouble, she wanted to help him, like she knew _he_ would have helped _her_ if the situation was reversed. Standing around while Marco went on ahead made her feel like some sort of animated wind from a kiddie cartoon trapped inside a shoe box, knocking and howling at the side of it with no one to hear and open up the lid so she could get out and blow to where she wanted to be, where she was _needed_.

Marco had come back, shaking his head, telling them that the house was dark, nobody in sight.

From there, it hadn't taken them too long to find out where Miles was: aka, the hospital. Only, that information hadn't been particularly reassuring.

All it really meant, Allie thought, was that they were too late to save him. _Too late._

She was even more sure of it when she finally saw him.

Ignoring Hospital personnel (mostly thirty-ish looking guys and fifty-ish looking women in white smocks and lab-coats with plated name-tags) who continued telling her she wasn't allowed back there, she ran right by several glass-walled rooms full of light-up, constantly beeping, equipment.

She came to a screeching halt that involved some skidding on the side of her sneakers right outside his door. Through the glass, she could see Miles lying there, unable to move, hooked up to a machine that was pretty much doing his breathing _for_ him.

_Goddammit, Merlin!_ Allie sniffled and wiped at her eyes with the side of her hand. _You were the one who was supposed to make it, _you_ were the one who was supposed to survive everything. It should be _me_ lying there!_

That was when she noticed there was a woman running towards her. Not dressed in white, just regular civilian clothes, she clearly didn't work at the hospital. She was pretty, in an oldish kind of way, with gray in her dark brown hair; she'd probably been a real looker when she was Allie's age. But with the worry lines on her face and sweat dripping from her eyebrows, though her features were nice, she really didn't look like a prime candidate for a spread in People Magazine or whatever at the moment.

It took less than a minute for Allie to figure out who this woman was. The way she stopped, inhaling deeply, at the same door as her, looking in with this terrified expression on her face, Allie knew her immediately. This had to be his mom. She must not have been so far away this time, close enough to make it here when she got the call.

"No..." The woman put her hand to her mouth. She didn't even seem to notice Allie was standing next to her.

"Excuse me, Miss," said a nurse behind her in a voice that sounded tense, coming out from sucked-in cheeks, like she was trying not to blow her lid. "But you can't be back here. We told you already. Go sit in the waiting room with the others."

The others. Will, Marco, Jen and Lance (both of whom had no idea that this ran deeper than some random unlucky medical emergency), Nikki (playing innocent), Mr. Guy (his hands over his face, not saying a word), and of course her parents. Even Mrs. Pennington would have been hustled back there by now, no longer in the entryway to the ICU. Allie couldn't _stand_ the thought of going back there with all of them just now.

"No." Allie glared at the nurse, shaking her head. "I want to stay."

"And I want to be eating pineapple on a beach in Hawaii, but that's not going to happen either," said a familiar voice that made Allie's blood run cold.

"What are _you_ doing here?" Allie demanded.

Because, of course, it was none other than Mr. Moore. "Me? I helped your friend Nikki when the poor kid in there fainted on her porch. And I called 911 and rode in the ambulance here with him."

"_Fainted_?" Allie repeated. Right. If Miles had just 'fainted', causing this, then she was the freaking queen of Sheba. She didn't know what they'd done to him, but she did know Mr. Moore, Anna, and Morgan were in on it with Nikki.

"Yeah, your friend was really scared," Mr. Moore said.

"Nikki is _not_ my friend," growled Allie.

"She was _his_ friend, though."

Allie frowned. "No, she wasn't really." Friends didn't hurt one another. Friends didn't put friends in the hospital out of spite.

"She has a point," said another familiar voice, one that made Allie's skin almost tingle with relief, like she knew subconsciously that someone was finally on her side.

"Hello, Marco," Mr. Moore said evenly.

"Marco?" Allie blinked. "How did you even get back here?"

"I have my ways." Marco glared at Mr. Moore.

"Excuse me, this is not a school dance, you kids can't be here," the nurse insisted.

"According to the bylaws of this hospital," Marco reminded her, "anyone from an established organization of which the party of the first part, the patient in question, has had dealings with, be it religious, semi-religious, evolutionist, cult or subculture, literary, such as a book club or scripture review group, role-playing, drug abuse assistance... etc, is permitted to pay a visit to the ICU under the human rights amendment that all parties in question be allowed to have someone of their faith present in the event of an emergency."

"Wait, _what_?" Mr. Moore's forehead crinkled.

Marco showed the nurse his Order of the Bear medallion. "I have as much right to be here as that priest in the next room over."

"_Wow_," Allie said flatly. For once, Marco's intimidating confrontation skills and dark brooding manner were coming in handy.

"Fine, you stay," the nurse grunted. "But she goes." She pointed at Allie.

She looked through the glass door and into the room again. Miles hair was being pushed back from his forehead by his mom, who had slipped into the room unfazed while the rest of them argued. It didn't concern her. All that mattered was her son was badly hurt. Allie knew how she felt; nothing mattered when someone you cared about more even than you might have realized before was out of commission.

She wanted his mother to look up and notice her, saying something that would make the nurse stop trying to boot her out of there. But she didn't; she was too busy whispering brokenly to her unconscious son to pay attention to the commotion continuing just outside the room.

"Marco." Allie reached out and gripped his arm. "You'll tell me if there's any..." Change? Proof that Nikki did this to him? A way to wake him up? "If he..." Dies? "If he..." She hardly even knew what it was she was asking.

Marco nodded, understanding. "I will."

Allie looked through the glass one more time, pressing her hand against it. "Goodbye, Miles."

The nurse was muttering swear words and coming over with a Bounty paper towel and a giant spray bottle of Windex the second her hand slid off the glass.

Allie knew it wasn't completely fair (the woman was technically just doing her job), but she sort of hated that nurse.

In the waiting room, Mr. Pennington rubbed his wife's back while she massaged her temples. He looked up and breathed out a sigh of mild relief when Allie walked in. At least now he was sure they hadn't kicked his daughter off the hospital premises altogether for ignoring at least four _Do Not Enter _signs in a row.

"How is he?" Jen asked. Her eyes looked red, like she'd been crying about Miles too.

Allie shook her head, not answering. "Where's Nikki?"

"I think she went to the lobby," Lance told her. "To get something from the vending machines."

"Okay, thanks." Allie turned to leave the waiting room.

"Allie, wait." Will stood up. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know."

"Then stay here," Will suggested. "Things could get out of hand."

"They're already out of hand," Allie retorted.

"Allie..."

"I want to talk to her."

Will followed her out into the hallway. "Allie!"

She was fast-walking towards the lobby. "I'm not going to let her get away with this, Will."

"I know you're scared, but this-" Will tried.

"No," Allie corrected him. "I'm not scared anymore. I'm _mad_."

"Will you slow down?"

"Fat chance." If he could run alongside her at the park for five miles at a shot, fast-walking and talking to her at the same time should be a piece of cake.

"This isn't the right time to confront her."

"Really, Will?" Allie snapped, looking at Will over her shoulder, cuz he had slowed down and was behind her now. "Then when _is_? After Miles _dies_? _After_ Mordred sends the whole world back into the Dark Ages filled with ignorance, humiliation, and suffering?" _High school_, she remembered Miles saying when her parents first explained the aim of Mordred and his followers to them, before she believed in any of this stuff. They'd both laughed. God, she missed him so much already.

"Allie, we have to think this through," Will insisted. "I want to help Miles just as much as you do, but you and Nikki getting into a fight won't solve anything."

"There's no time for that." She noticed Mr. Moore coming down the hallway. Obviously he'd left the ICU. "Shh." She pressed her hand over Will's mouth and leaned back against the wall, pulling him with her.

If Mr. Moore didn't see them there, he might get to Nikki first and say something to her. Allie only hoped, whatever it was, it was something they'd be able to use to bring Miles back.

Creeping forward, they watched as Nikki, standing in front of the vending machine, lifted one hand and muttered something under her breath. Her eyes glowed orange and a candy-bar fell out of the machine.

"I see you're using the magic Emrys taught you wisely," chuckled Mr. Moore.

She rolled her eyes. "I paid for it, it just got stuck."

He laugh-snorted. "I'm sure."

"What do you want?"

"Only to ask if they suspect anything."

"Marco, Will, Allie Pennington's parents, and Mr. Guy know something's up," Nikki told him. "But Jen and Lance are complete idiots. They totally buy that he just collapsed on my front porch and you, driving by in your ice cream truck, came to help me. Jen actually tried to _comfort _me."

"Come out here so you could have a moment alone to gloat?" Mr. Moore teased.

Nikki cocked her head. "Oh, come now." She swallowed and tried to make herself start fake crying again.

"You know, you're actually very good at that."

She hugged him, still pretending to sniffle.

Allie noticed she put her hand in his pocket, very carefully so that he didn't feel it, and pulled out a familiar-looking pen.

_Hey, that belongs to _Miles_!_ She felt her teeth grinding together. It was the pen he'd turned the staff he'd reclaimed into. Mr. Moore must have taken it back after they'd done whatever it was they'd done to make him go unconscious. And now Nikki was taking it off of him for herself. Not surprising. She had everything Miles taught her, why _wouldn't_ she want the staff along with it? It would almost be like having all of Merlin's power for herself while he was indisposed.

As soon as Mr. Moore left, Allie stepped out, letting go of Will and planting herself firmly in Nikki's way.

"Oh, hey, Allie." She sniffled.

"I know exactly what you're doing," Allie told her.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Nikki lied.

Allie reached out and smacked her across the face.

"Ow!" Nikki swore, putting her hand to her now sore cheek. "What's _wrong_ with you?"

"_That_," Allie hissed, "was a warning. If anything happens to him, it's going to be so much worse. Because, I swear, I'll know _exactly_ whose fault it is if Miles never wakes up."

"You don't know anything," Nikki practically spat.

She reached out.

Thinking she was going to hit her again, Nikki jerked her head back.

But Allie wasn't going for her head; she was just snatching back Merlin's staff. She had her friend's magic pen in her hand before Nikki could try and stop her. "I know more than you think."

With that, she turned, shoulders back and head held high, and stormed down the hallway, not stopping until she reached an exit and had walked straight out of the hospital.


	13. Chapter 13

Allie sat on the living room floor with her knees pulled to her chest. The pen she'd reclaimed from Nikki, since Miles was currently unconscious in the ICU and unable to do so himself, was on the coffee-table in front of her. She didn't know how to turn it back into a staff. And she _definitely_ didn't know how to use it, even if she _could_ turn it back.

How was she supposed to stop Mordred again, _and _do something about Nimueh, Morgana, and Morgause at the same time? All three of them had magic, though it probably wasn't as powerful as Merlin's, and she had practically _none_, in spite of the fact that she'd been a Druid in her past life.

At least, if nothing else, she knew what she'd said to Nikki had been the absolute truth. If Miles never woke up, she'd deal with Nikki herself, using her own two hands. Magic or no magic.

She would have given anything to see him standing at her front door again. Miles wouldn't be able to comfort her this time. No, this time, she was on her own, and, worse still, she might be losing him forever.

Had he felt this hopeless as Merlin when she (as Freya) died? Was there a point when he knew-almost for sure, but not quite-that she was really slipping away and there was nothing he could do about it? He must have. And now... Now, it was _her_ turn. It was her turn, and she couldn't deal.

The front door opened. "Allie?"

A male voice. Young, like a teenager's, but not Miles. Allie breathed in and out sharply. _Will_. It was Will, coming to check on her.

Will came and sat down beside her.

She let out a sob.

"Hey, come here." He put his arms around her, rocking her back and forth while she cried into his collarbone. "It's okay. Miles is going to be fine."

Pulling away and looking up at him, Allie said, sort of quietly, "You don't know that."

"Yeah, I do." Will forced a smile.

"How?"

"I'm the reincarnation of King Arthur, remember?" he pointed out. "If it's really all true, then me and Merlin-_Miles_-we've been through a lot together. If we made everything work out in Camelot, if we defeated evil there, I think maybe we can do it here, too."

She sighed sadly. "He had a destiny, and it wasn't this. This wasn't meant to happen; not to _him_."

"Don't be so quick to write him off, Allie," said Will. "He's your friend, he'd never give up on _you_."

"You're right." Allie knew he was. Of course Will was right. Somehow, Will was _always _right.

"And we're going to find a way to help him," he told her. "You and me, and Marco, we'll think of something."

The doorbell rang.

"Were you expecting someone?" Will asked.

"Not that I know of," Allie said.

Grunting lightly, she pulled herself up off the floor and walked to the door, Will right behind her.

"Oh," she said, when she saw who it was.

Standing there, holding something that sparkled under the yellow light above the door, was the same woman who had been in the ICU to see Miles.

"Hi," she said, sounding unsure.

"Hi." Allie smiled tightly. The mother of her best friend, who she didn't want to believe might be dying (..._no_, he wasn't, of course he wasn't, Will was right, they were going to find a way to save him, they _had _to...), was standing right in front of her. She felt like she should know this woman, since she knew Miles and this was his mom and all, but she had to admit she didn't, really. So this was more than just a little awkward.

"Are you Allie Pennington?"

"Yeah."

"We've never really met, but I'm...Miles is my... I know you're a friend of his..." she stammered.

"Hey, it's okay," Allie blurted. It seemed like her best friend's mother was about to burst out crying, and, frankly, she didn't blame her. This was all _way_ too much to handle.

"Have I seen you before?"

Allie nodded. "At the hospital." She winced. "I was the girl the nurse kicked out."

"If I'd known who you were, I'd have tried to say something," she told her. "Miles talked about you a lot."

It was like he was already dead: Miles _talked_; past tense. Allie seriously wished she could trade places with him right then. She didn't think she'd mind being numb, dead to the world in some kind of magical coma, if it meant she didn't have to take another second of this. "No, it's fine. I mean, I understand completely."

"Here." She held out the sparkling object to her.

It was a snow globe. Inside, it had an almost 3D pop-out kind of depiction of a lake surrounded by mountains. "Why are you giving me this?"

"Miles, he-" She closed her eyes and breathed in. "He wanted you to have it if anything happened to him."

God! He wasn't _dead_. His mother shouldn't be giving away his things! But something in Allie's bones was telling her she should-no, _needed_-to take it. Somehow, it would help. Besides, she'd admit it (well, to herself, at least): having something that belonged to Miles (something that, unlike the pen/staff, he'd apparently _wanted_ her to have, not just something she'd snatched off of Nikki to keep safe until he woke up) made her feel closer to him.

With shaking hands, she reached out and took the snow globe from his mom. "Thank you." Her voice came out sounding pretty feeble.

"Well, I'd better go." She started to leave. "I need to try and sleep so I can be back at the hospital with my son first thing in the morning."

Will and Allie both knew the woman in front of them, dark circles already under her eyes, was not going to be getting any sleep that night. But they nodded, like they didn't know this, like they thought she would be getting her needed shut eye until morning and didn't want to keep her any longer.

"I feel so bad," Will said, as soon as she'd left and Allie had closed the door. "You know, that she has no _idea_. About Miles being Merlin, about why this is all happening..."

"How do you think _I_ feel?" Allie whispered, looking into the snow globe. The lake, it was so beautiful, so real... She wished she was in there, by that water, looking at those mountains. No, she wished she was _anywhere_ but here without Miles. "It's like guilt is eating away at me every time I'm so much as _breathing_." For more reasons than Will would ever know; plenty of them to do with Miles, and not just_ this_ situation, either. Not that it mattered anymore.

"Do you want me to stay with you tonight, Allie?" Will offered. "Your parents would probably let me take the couch... I'll stay up with you, if you can't sleep."

She wouldn't sleep, but she didn't want him to stay either. "No." Allie shook her head. "Thanks, Will, but the only worse than being alone tonight would be _not_ being alone right tonight." Will could never understand how much it hurt. It would be cruel and selfish to even expect-or _want_-him to.

He kissed her on the cheek. "I'll see you tomorrow, then."

"Okay, goodnight." She let go of the snow globe with one hand to give him a kind of half-hug and a returning kiss on his cheek.

When Will had left, gotten in his car and gone down the street, Allie bit her lower lip to hold back another long cry she knew she didn't deserve but couldn't stop (just sort of delay), she went up the stairs to her room and put the snow globe on the dresser by her bedside.

She'd look at the lake while she tried to sleep. While she tried not to think about how now poor Miles could do nothing _but_ sleep.

The glowing red numbers on her digital alarm clock read 3AM before tiredness finally won over gnawing sadness and _made_ her fall asleep.

Allie found herself in a very unusual dream. It was like one of her crazy King Arthur dreams, but with more _feeling _somehow. She could feel arms that carried her, a soft, rich dress pooling at her feet, her face buried in someone's neck, her head resting on that same someone's shoulder. She knew she was in Camelot; but, aside from that, she knew nothing. Oh, except, that she felt pain. Not inward, emotional pain. Physical pain, like a wound. A fresh, deep wound that wasn't healing.

Her eyes were shut. When the person gently lowered her down, still holding onto her, she opened her eyes and turned her head. There was the lake. _Her_ lake. And the same one from the Snow Globe Miles wanted her to have.

"You remembered," Dream-Allie whispered.

It was Miles who was holding her. "Of course."

She felt so weak. Could you die in your own dream? If so, Allie felt sure that was _exactly_ what was about to happen. It hurt to talk. Her chest was so heavy, her breathing so labored.

"I don't want you to go," Dream-Miles said, crying.

She looked up at him, immediately understanding. She knew just how he felt. Now, in her life, awake, not in some bizarre Arthurian dream, it was _her_ who didn't want _him_ leaving. She couldn't watch him die. Couldn't _let_ him die. He couldn't leave them; he was _Merlin_. More than that, he was their friend. _Her_ friend. Her best friend. Maybe more.

In short, she had to admit it, now, in his arms, even if she wasn't really there, she loved him.

"One day," Dream-Allie whispered to Dream-Miles, "I will repay you. I promise."

She heard only a few more of his sniffles and sobs, felt only a couple more of his tears (or was it drizzle?) landing on her face before blackness swallowed her up.

In the blackness, she panicked, lost and a little frightened, and rolled over.

There was a _thump_.

Her eyes had closed in the dream, and shot open in her bedroom. (On her bedroom _floor_, to be more exact.)

Not even a full second after the thump, there came a crash. Allie had felt her arm hit the dresser in the darkness, though she couldn't tell for sure what it was at the time, and now she felt a small cut on one of her arms, caused by a shard of broken glass.

The snow globe lay beside her elbow, broken into a thousand pieces.

Allie's mouth formed the words, "Oh, _crap_," but all that came out of her throat was a faint squeak.

The water from the broken globe trickled into a strangely inky-looking pool on the floor, right in Allie's range of vision. Slowly but surely, an image began to form in the water.

"What the-" She rubbed at her eyes.

The image was hooded, mostly clear now, except the face was still coming into focus. As it came, she knew it was a familiar face. The same face that looked up at her from the globe water had told her she was making a 'tactical error of monumental proportions' on the first day of school at Avalon High, referring to the fact that she'd said hi and introduced herself to him.

"Miles?" It was impossible. Miles was in the ICU. And even if he wasn't, why the heck would he be in a water spill from a broken souvenir?

"Allie?" But that was _his_ voice, along with his face. "Is that really you?"

She nodded. "I've already been missing you."

"My mom gave you the snow globe?"

"Yeah, why-"

"Allie, we don't have long." This seemed to make him sad. "I'm sorry. The water in the globe was from the lake of Avalon. When I was a kid, some old guy at a school carnival gave it to me. It was weird, seeing as I hadn't actually _won_ any of the games... Anyway, that was before I found out about being Merlin. But I'm in Avalon now."

Allie cut him off. "No, you're in the hospital."

"Part of me is. My body from our current lifetime. The rest of me-well, the parts of me that Nikki's magic isn't controlling-is here, in Avalon. There are other people here, Allie, who never got reincarnated after Camelot. They weren't needed and I guess most of them earned a half-decent rest. I had this vision, about my mom giving you the snow globe, a day after the big game, I just didn't tell anyone. That's why I asked her to give it to you if anything happened; I knew you'd needed it. Now I know why. Because the water in the globe is from here, it's the only way I can tell you what you have to do to stop Nimueh. Nikki, I mean. I've been waiting and waiting to talk to you. Druids can talk telepathically sometimes, but my body in the hospital doesn't have enough power to try and communicate with you like that. I can't really use my magic unless Nikki wants me to."

"Don't worry, Miles, we're going to find a way to stop her and wake you up," Allie told him.

"I can tell you how to stop her," Miles said grimly, "but I can't wake up in the hospital."

"What?" Allie's forehead wrinkled. "Why? If I stop Nikki..."

"I'm dying, Allie." He just said it, like he was trying to get it out there and over with.

"No, you're not."

"The only power I have in this lifetime, outside of Avalon, in the mortal world, that isn't controlled by Nikki right now, I have to use to help you stop her. You _can _do it, Allie, but you need my help," Miles explained. "But if I help you, then I can't use what's left of my magic to leave Avalon and wake up. I could only do that if..." He closed his eyes. "If I didn't help you."

"But if we stop Nikki," Allie said, her voice growing raspy, "then she isn't controlling your magic anymore and..."

"It'll go to _you_," Miles said. "You're the one who's going to have to make Will the great leader he was meant to be. Everything Nikki took from me will go to you."

"I can't guide Arthur...I mean, _Will_...without you, Miles."

"You won't be." He smiled. "I'll be there, every step of the way. You have my pen. When you use it as a staff again (that's how you'll defeat Nikki), I'll be there, helping you. As long as you have that, I'm with you. I'll be everywhere you are. Everything you see, everywhere you go, I'll know all about it. You just won't see me; I'll be in Avalon, waiting."

"Waiting?" Allie said, confused. "For what?"

"For Santa to bring me presents!" he snapped sarcastically. "What do you_ think_?"

"Me?"

"Will gets you in this life," Miles said, grinning, "but when it's over, you come home to me in Avalon, got it?"

"Miles!" she gasped, as if in shock. Really, she was just holding back another round of tears.

"It'll be years," Miles pointed out. "By then you and Captain Everything might start getting on each other's nerves."

Allie sobbed and laughed at the same time. She tried to hold it back, but it came out as a choked-up snort when she did.

"And you can wait," he joked. "It's not like you love me or anything."

"No," Allie said softly. "But I always will."

The grin on his face widened. Then he forced himself to stop beaming. "But enough of that. You need to know a bit about the staff. Back in Camelot, I got it off of the Sidhe..."

Allie listened while he explained the staff's origins and how best to use it. When he was finally done with the long-winded back-story and instructions, he told her he had to go soon. The water was trickling way, dripping through the cracks in the floorboards. They didn't have much time left.

"And you're really going to guide the staff when I use it?" Allie asked. It seemed...maybe not _impossible_, per-say, but definitely a little miraculous. So long, obviously, as she didn't think about the fact that to do so, he was giving up this life forever; that she was losing seeing him again, most likely for the rest of her current lifetime.

He nodded. "And you're going to take my place as the magician who brings Arthur into power."

"Yes." Of course she was. It would be her last favor to her soon to be long-lost best friend.

"Thank you," he said, gently and without even his usual twinge of sarcasm in his voice.

"No." He shouldn't be thanking her; she wasn't rescuing him, she was letting him sacrifice himself and being as nonchalant about it as she could, even if it was killing her inside. She felt like she should be thanking _him_. For saying goodbye. "Your snow globe gave me the chance to see you one last time."

"Hey, don't be sad, Allie," he tried to cheer her up. "I'll see you again in Avalon, remember? _And _in the next life." His eye twitched, almost like he was winking at her. "Who knows? Maybe I'll come back as a meat-head jock."

She swallowed hard and chuckled. "You as a jock, now that I've _got_ to see."

Miles smiled again.

Something, obviously in Avalon (because it sounded watery and muffled, not clear like it was coming from the room or anywhere else in Allie's house), smashed.

Miles looked over his shoulder. "Geeze, Gwaine! Take it easy on the cider, will you? Just because there's no time in Avalon doesn't mean you can get trashed every day here without consequences." He looked back at Allie. "Gwaine never got reincarnated. Personally, I think he was too drunk to notice when practically everybody else jumped on the reincarnation bandwagon."

Gwaine slurred something and broke what Allie guessed was another jug of Avalon-style cider.

"Do you mind?" Miles snapped, looking over his shoulder again. "I'm kind of in a very important conversation over here!"

Gwaine mumbled something else unintelligible.

"Okay, now you're just being rude."

"Allie!" Her bedroom door swung open, Mrs. Pennington standing there. "What happened? I heard something crash and there's water dripping from the ceiling under here onto your dad's latest research papers on King Arthur."

Allie smiled at her mom. "I'm fine. Just an accident. I fell out of bed again. Don't worry, I'll clean it up." She looked back, excitedly, at what was left of the water, eager to continue her conversation with Miles. But, by then, he was gone. There was no Miles and the water was perfectly clear and ordinary. "Miles?"

No answer.

She closed her eyes and slowly stood up, careful not to get any glass bits stuck in her knees or palms. It was up to her now. She had to stop Nikki, protecting Will and freeing Miles.


	14. Chapter 14

After cleaning up the broken glass, Allie reached under her bed, feeling for the place on the floor where she'd hidden the pen.

Instead, her fingers brushed against something much longer.

Something that felt vaguely like electricity zapped through her fingertips and ran all the way up to her wrist. And she knew, as she dragged it out, that the pen would be in its full, sleek and elegant, staff-form when she unearthed it.

Miles was helping her, just like he'd promised.

"Thanks, Miles," she whispered, clutching the staff and using it as a sort of crutch to pull herself up beside it.

There had to be something she could do. Maybe, if she brought the staff _to_ him, at the hospital, he could subconsciously draw power from it, enough to wake up. No, that wasn't any good. All that would do was give Nikki a chance to steal it back. Miles said he'd help her stop Nikki; even if he _could_ draw power from the staff, Allie wasn't stupid enough to think he'd sacrifice helping her. Besides, if he woke up now, with Nikki still in control of him and his magic, what kind of life would he be stuck in?

It was like those cases when a person had a choice between going into a sweet oblivion, dying and getting complete rest, or living like a vegetable.

In most cases, when it came to things like that, it was complete death verses miserable prolonged life. In _this_ case, it was miserable prolonged life verses one of relative freedom in Avalon. If she freed Miles from Nikki's control, he could probably be pretty comfortable there. Waiting might be boring, but it didn't sound like such a bad place, actually. They had cider, after all. Probably lakes, too. Or maybe the whole country _was_ a lake. No, wasn't Avalon an island? Like a lost continent or whatever? No, wait, that was _Atlantis_, not Avalon. Oops. Well, anyway, _Gwaine _didn't seem to totally hate it, whatever Avalon was really like.

Then again, was she really going to base an important life decision on what a drunk ex-knight of Camelot thought? Not freaking likely.

But Miles didn't offer to help her so that he would wake up still a prisoner. She could be ruining so much more; maybe even, for all she knew, Will's chances at becoming the leader he was meant to be. Mr. Moore, Nikki, Morgan, and Anna would stand in his way. Nikki was probably the most powerful out of all of them. Being the reincarnation of Nimueh and having been taught by Merlin's reincarnation gave her a whole lot going for her. A whole lot she didn't _deserve_, but that was beside the point. She was the one who held Miles trapped in a coma on a hospital bed, defenseless. If she stopped her, the others would sort of go away, for a little while anyway. They'd have to come up with a new plan for striking at Arthur's circle. And, if she did as snow globe water Miles had told her, they wouldn't have lost Merlin's help entirely, the way they would if Nikki still held him trapped. His gift would be shared through her (through the reincarnated Lady of the Lake) in this lifetime, keeping Will (Arthur) safe until it was time for him to take charge and change the world.

But she'd never see him again! Miles wouldn't come over her house anymore. She'd never spot him walking down the halls of Avalon High or see him studying on the park bench. His voice, his snarky comments, gone. Just like that. He'd never watch Jeopardy with her starstruck, Arthurian-fanatical parents again. If she woke up crying some night, dreaming about Camelot, or worse, killing that man in self-defense, she couldn't call him. Avalon, apparently, didn't take collect calls from the mortal realm. So a long-distance friendship was pretty much O-U-T.

How was she supposed to go on without him? She _needed _him. She needed him, and it scared her.

Well, whatever she had to do, whatever she had to give up, whatever she had to let him sacrifice for their cause, she could go to the hospital and see him one last time. He couldn't be dead_ already_.

At least, she _hoped _not.

She couldn't go barging into the hospital with a staff. Who was everyone supposed to think she was? The blond, chick version of Gandalf the Grey?

More likely, they'd all think she was totally nuts.

Allie put the staff down on top of her unmade bed and folded the sheets over it. It left a pole-like impression in the comforter, but otherwise it was pretty well concealed. She'd come back for it later. If Miles was right, she'd need it to defeat Nikki. Cuz, frankly, she didn't think she was going to be able to stop her with, like, the power of positive thinking or whatever.

Mr. Pennington gave her a ride to the hospital. On the way, they happened to pass the park, and Allie, looking out the window, saw two familiar people just getting off the curb and trudging into the deeper greenery, the denser parts of the property that public maintenance workers didn't get around to trimming or clearing out that often: Nikki and Anna.

"Now, don't be too upset if the nurses won't let you in the ICU," her dad told her as the car rolled to a stop and she put her hand on the door-handle. "They're just doing their job. They don't know you're the Lady of the Lake."

"I know," Allie said quickly, getting out and shutting the door behind her. She looked at Mr. Pennington through the window, which was still down halfway. "Bye, Dad."

"Good luck, sweetheart."

"Thanks." She nodded and walked through the revolving hospital door, straight into the front lobby.

Marco was standing, to her surprise, on one of the iron-railing balconies, looking down into the lobby. His medallion dangled from his neck, glinting.

Allie had an idea. "Marco!"

Less than two minutes later, she was exiting an elevator pretty much directly behind him, panting slightly. "Marco, I need you to do something for me, okay?"

"What?"

"I need to borrow your Order of the Bear necklace."

He raised one of his dark eyebrows at her. "Allie, it's not a _necklace_, it's the official seal of the Order of the Bear."

"Whatever." She waved it off and rolled her eyes. "You wear it around your neck, don't you? So it's a necklace. And I need to borrow it. _Now_."

"Allie, I can't just _give_ you-" Marco started, looking understandably peeved.

"I need it to get into the ICU," Allie insisted. "Marco, _please_. I'm _begging_ you. I have to see him one last time."

It wouldn't be the same as seeing him in the globe water, since he wouldn't be able to talk to her, and she wouldn't really be saying goodbye (she'd already done that), but it would be something; something that she couldn't do without. If she had to make this choice, she had to get in there-_in_ that room, not just stand outside it staring in through the glass-and see him in person.

"What are you talking about?" Marco asked.

"Can I trust you?"

"You're kidding me, right?" He cocked his head at her.

She sighed. "Okay, listen." She put her hand on his arm and led him a short way back from the railing's edge, lowering her voice. "I know this is going to sound crazy, but you of all people have to believe me. Miles talked to me. There was all this broken glass and this magic water, and he was in Avalon, and he told me-" Her voice cracked. She swallowed and exhaled heavily. "He told me... Well, it's a long story, but the cheat-sheet version is, basically, he's going to give up his life in this world so we can defeat Nikki. He's going to help me stop her. With his magic, I can use his staff. But it means he's not going to wake up."

"Ever?" Marco blurted, taking a step back, out of her light grasp, and rapidly blinking at her in shock.

Allie looked down at her feet.

"God, Allie!"

"I know," she whispered.

"Are you seriously going to let him do that?"

"I don't think I have a choice." If she did, if she _really_ did, maybe she would have saved him. Or switched places with him.

"Here." Marco reached behind his neck and took off the medallion. "Just... Give it back when you come out."

"Of course." She nodded and stretched out her hand.

To her surprise, Marco actually leaned over and put it on her himself, giving her a quick brotherly kiss on the forehead.

It was enough to make her want to break down and sob all over again; to run back home and curl up in a fetal position knowing Miles wouldn't be able to intercept her falling apart this time. Except, she couldn't. Everyone was counting on her. Marco and Will, Mr. Guy, even Miles himself.

_One day, Merlin, I will repay you. I promise._

She didn't remember, but somehow she was sure she'd kept that promise in her past life. She had to keep it now, too. The only way to repay Miles would be to keep what he-as Merlin-stood for alive: the hope Arthur bringing back Camelot. She had to support Will, like Merlin-_Miles_-would have if none of this had happened, if Nikki hadn't gone all psycho and tried to kill him.

"Do what you have to, Milady," Marco whispered, stepping back and bowing on one knee, same as he had the night of the big game.

His face was all serious-like and she knew he understood. "I will."

Allie started to walk towards the ICU. She was in the waiting room closest to it when she spotted Jen carrying a Styrofoam cup of steaming coffee.

"Jen, what are you doing here?" What she really wanted to know was if they'd let her in to see Miles. If so, then maybe she hadn't had to borrow Marco's medallion after all. Not if they were letting regular people into the ICU now, or if they'd moved him to another room.

"Oh, Mr. Guy's been here since about six." She shrugged. "I feel really bad for him. He's taking it so hard, what's happened to Miles." Her voice weakened. "Not that I blame him. I'm all busted up inside. I just wish there was something I could... Anyway, I've just been hanging around running errands for Mr. Guy. I can't leave him alone like this. I know he's just a teacher, but ever since this happened, I feel like he's almost family or something and I have to be here." She held up the cup. "This is for him. I don't really drink much coffee, but Mr. Guy is totally hooked on the bean."

"So they're still not letting anyone except his mom see him?"

Jen wrinkled her nose. "They let _Marco_ in for some reason. But he's kind of..._scary_...sometimes, so I really can't say I blame them."

"Where's Lance?"

"He's not here," Jen said. "It's probably for the best. He's having a tough time dealing with all this (he says if he can't go in and see him, then there's no point staying here, knowing Miles is...um...) and it's hard being around him anyway since the break up, so." She shrugged, careful not to spill the coffee. "Yeah."

"I'm sorry it didn't work out between you guys."

"It's my fault," Jen told her. "I messed it up. Just like I messed things up with Will. Two guys, and I made them both give up on me. It can't be _them_. Not _both_ of them."

"It happens, sometimes," said Allie, trying to be comforting. "I mean, maybe _you_ didn't mess up. Maybe this love stuff is what's messed up."

"You think?"

"Yeah, I mean, I've only ever been in love with two guys before that I know of, but-"

"One's Will," Jen noted.

"Sure is. Anyway, it's-"

She cut her off. "The other one's Miles, right?"

Allie thought she was going to barf up a lung. _What_ had Jen just said? Had _she _seen them at Will's party, too? God! "Wh-what? _No_! No way. Of course not. I was talking about, um, this other guy, uh, Tommy, from a long, _long_ time ago, like back in junior high."

Jen smiled knowingly. "It's okay, Allie, I'm not going to say anything. I don't get a lot of stuff, but I _totally_ knew there was something between you two, cuz of the way Miles used to look at you, at school and stuff, like whenever Will kissed you."

Allie nodded, though, really, she had no idea. What way had Miles looked at her when she and Will kissed? Like he was jealous? Or _sad_, maybe? She'd never noticed, and Jen obviously wasn't about to clarify. How was it even possible that of all people, the _cheerleader_ caught onto it?

Not that it mattered anymore.

"Miles is really special," Jen said. "I understand why you two would like each other. Will's wonderful, but he's one of those tough, run out and change the world types. Miles is more of an idea person. God, he was always so nice to me! I _so_ can't believe something like this happened to _him_ of all people."

"Neither can I," Allie said softly. Clearing her throat, she added, "Hey, that coffee's going to get cold. Aren't you bringing that to Mr. Guy?" She couldn't storm into the ICU flashing the Order of the Bear medallion like a VIP pass if Jen was watching.

"You're right. I gotta go. See you later, Allie." Jen turned and went into the waiting room to give Mr. Guy his (probably lukewarm by then) coffee.

Allie got into the ICU without any real trouble. The same nurse from before recognized her, giving her the stink eye, but since everybody else on the staff was apparently all gung-ho for letting the clearly underage teenager in just because she had some kind of bear company necklace, she didn't say anything.

Miles was still lying there, hooked up to that breathing machine. His mother had fallen asleep in a fold-out chair in the corner of the room, her head flopped onto the side of her shoulder and pieces of her hair hanging in front of her face, only moving upwards when she snored.

Poor woman, thought Allie.

She crept in quietly, not wanting to disturb her. "Hey, Miles," she whispered, going over to the bedside. "I know we, like, _just_ talked, but I had to come and see you before..." Biting her lower lip, she pushed her wrist through a fist-sized gap in the thick, white plastic bed-rail and touched the back of his hand with her fingers.

Suddenly his hand wrapped around hers and squeezed.

Allie gasped. He knew she was there; it was just like he'd told her, he was with her, and he was ready to help her. If he could wiggle loose enough from Nikki's magic to squeeze her hand, he could definitely guide the staff he'd turned the pen back into. That would be it; he'd never wake up, but he would be free. And Will would be safe from whatever blow Mr. Moore planned against King Arthur using Nikki (Nimueh).

But surely there was time. He couldn't mean for her to do it _now_. To chose to end his life in this time period now... Where was the urgency? If Nikki meant for him to lie there for a while, unconscious, as punishment for whatever in her mind made him an enemy, then, obviously...

Outside, storm clouds gathered and lightning crackled.

_Real subtle_. Allie shuddered involuntarily.

Miles let go of her hand. His grip loosened on hers, his fingers dropping, useless and limp all over again. One of the machines he was hooked up to started beeping like crazy and his mom woke up, bolting upright, eyes widened.

"What happened?"

"I don't know." Allie glanced out the window. It was raining pretty hard. Lightning even struck a pole across the street, sending bursts of yellow firework-like sparks shooting out from a number of transformers.

Two doctors and four nurses came in and hustled her out in the process.

Allie felt dazed. Something was very, very wrong. Miles couldn't be going, not for real, and not _yet_. She hadn't stopped Nikki yet.

_Nikki_. Suddenly it all made sense. Nikki at the park with Anna... They had to be up to something; something that was going to prevent Allie from messing things up for them. If they thought, even for a minute, Miles was going to help her use that staff...

She wasn't going to let him down. She raced through the white hallways, taking the stairs so she wouldn't have to stop at the elevator, and rushed out a side exit. It was supposed to be a fire exit only, and she set off the alarm when she pushed it open, but Allie didn't care. She just kept running as fast as her feet would take her. Luckily, all her track team training was paying off; she might as well have been _flying_, given the speed she was going strong at.

Soaking wet, she practically _threw_ herself into the house and up the stairs when she reached home.

As soon as she was in her room, she pulled back the covers on her bed and grabbed the staff.

Wait, she couldn't go running down the street holding a _staff_...

Allie grunted impatiently and pretty much ripped the thinnest sheet (already damp from her dripping on it) right off the bed, wrapping and draping it over the staff.

Then she took off again, almost forgetting to shut the door behind her.

She'd have to keep running through the rain, straight to the park, not even stopping to pant for breath. She had no time to hope a taxi would stop for her and no money in her pockets to pay for it anyway. Besides, what good was a taxi? Somehow, she kind of figured Nimueh and Morgause could stop a _taxi _easier than than they'd be able to stop_ her_.

The park (_barely_, due to how thick the rain was and the fact that Allie's eyes were seriously beginning to smart) came into view at last.

Allie went straight for the place where she'd seen Nikki and Anna headed. Pushing past overgrown shrubbery, she found herself in a practically non-existent clearing, complete with a boulder that took up about half the space and tangled ivy vines.

On the middle of the boulder was a some kind of fancy ancient Celtic chalice. Solid gold, it glimmered and sparkled, even in the murky storm-covered light.

Allie hadn't been expecting this. "The Cup of Life."


	15. Chapter 15

Allie wasn't sure how she knew it was the Cup of Life. Heck, she wasn't even sure how she knew what the Cup of Life _was_. Given, she must have known about it in her past life, but she wasn't like Miles. _He_ was the one who had flashes of memory, who remembered her being a Druid (and remembered her dying, being killed by Arthur). She just had her dreams. And she wasn't dreaming now; she was wide awake.

After_ that_ run, standing there, soaked and shaking, totally emotionally charged, she didn't think she could have felt more awake if she'd drank five glasses of Mountain Dew!

But, anyway, she_ knew_. And, right then, maybe the whys and hows didn't really matter.

"What are _you_ doing here?" Anna came into the clearing and stood with one foot up on the edge of the boulder, resting her elbow on her knee and her chin in her curled hand.

"What do you _think_?" Allie snarled. "I know what Nikki did to Miles. And I'm not going to let her get away with it."

"Oh, really?" Anna smirked. She murmured something under her breath, took her foot off the boulder, and moved her hand in front of her face. When she pulled the hand away, it wasn't _Anna_ looking at Allie anymore. Nikki stood there in her place. "Then, I guess, you want to talk to _me _about it."

"_Nimueh_," she growled.

"Thought I was Anna, didn't you?" She laughed, clearly amused. "Before we start arguing over what I did to Miles, I just want to get out that he really didn't use his power like he should've. If he wanted you so badly, he should have just made himself look like Will Wagner. You wouldn't have known the difference."

Allie's fingers gripped the sheet-wrapped staff so tightly her knuckles throbbed. "Yes, I would have. I thought you were Anna because I saw you _and _Anna (or I guess I should say, _Morgause_) on my way to the hospital. Besides, Miles wouldn't do something like that. He's not selfish. He didn't..._doesn't_...practice dark magic like _you_. Miles would never betray someone who trusted him."

Nikki rolled her eyes. "Hold up a minute. Am I the pot or the kettle here? Because, you know, I think I want to be the pot. No, no, wait, the kettle. Yeah, the kettle's the best. On second thought, who cares?" Her eyes narrowed. "They're _both _black."

"What are you talking about?" Was she trying to trick her? Well, whatever she was doing, it wouldn't work.

"Miles would never betray someone who trusted him?" Nikki scoffed. "Cute. Cute, but also a bold-faced lie. Merlin acts like he's so innocent. 'Oh, look at me, poor little persecuted warlock. In one life, Uther wants to kill me, or _would_ if he knew the truth about me, anyway. In another, I get beat up for being a nerd. Isn't is a shame?'; yeah, right." She let out a disgusted snort. "But all along, he's as bad as any of us. After all, he had loads of time, didn't he, to tell our precious reincarnated Arthur, aka your boyfriend, Mr. Quarterback, he was seeing his girlfriend behind his back? But he didn't. He didn't tell Will, and he didn't tell _me_, either. He had no problem with betrayal when he was on the receiving end. It was okay to sneak around behind Will's back when the girl in question was the Lady of the Lake, apparently."

"That is such bull," Allie stated. Yes, she and Miles had kissed. No, she had no clue how Nikki found out, unless she'd used magic. Yes, she was in love with Miles. No, she hadn't meant to betray Will. Neither had Miles.

"Oh, I understand why you would think that," laughed Nikki, her tone bitter. "Don't get me wrong, Allie, I completely understand. You had no intention of letting it go on, did you? You were never going to leave Will for him, whatever Miles thought."

"Miles _never_ thought I'd break up with Will," Allie insisted. Though, deep down, she wasn't so sure.

_Had_ he thought that? Maybe when he'd told her that Arthur was the one who killed her in Camelot? Had he thought that might be the end of them? No, Miles wasn't like that. The Miles she cared about wanted her to be happy. If Will made her happy, he wouldn't have tried to split them up. Miles was only trying to help her. It was Nikki who would double-cross her. Nikki had tried to _kill_ Miles. Was _still_ trying! She wouldn't let herself feel sorry for her.

"Don't be so sure," Nikki said. "After all, Merlin only works for his own ends. He killed me, back in Camelot. He valued the traitor you now know as Mr. Guy. In Camelot, he was called Gaius. He was a traitor to all of his kind, still working for Uther, in spite of everything. And our dear warlock valued him over me. Then there was Poor Morgana. He poisoned her. She would've died, but Morgause saved her."

"Nothing you can say is going to turn me against Miles," Allie said flatly.

"It wasn't just Morgana either. Mr. Moore has good reason to hate him. When he was a boy in Camelot, probably thirteen years old, maybe, Merlin used magic to trip him. The guards could have killed him. Luckily, Mordred defeated them first." Nikki climbed onto the boulder and crossed her legs, sitting right beside the Cup of Life. "See, there's what you call a pecking order with Merlin. He's selfish, he'll choose whatever means most to _him_, without thinking of anybody else. He picked Gaius over me, his own safety over Mordred's, His life and Arthur's over Morgana's, and he'd pick you over Arthur."

"That's not true."

"Of course it is. He'd lie, steal, run away, you name it, if it meant protecting _you_."

"You're a total headcase," Allie snapped. "You need professional help, Nikki. You and Mr. Moore both."

"I might have been dead before he met you in Camelot," Nikki told her, "but _Mordred _wasn't, and stories do have a way of traveling. I know all about it. About how he saved you, hid you, lied for you. He was even going to run away with you. But you didn't really love him _then_, either. You tried to leave without him. _That's _when Arthur wounded you."

No, that wasn't true... It couldn't be...

"When I first found out about you and Miles, I didn't understand how deep it went. Now, thanks to Mr. Moore, I do."

"Stop it." Allie hated the way her voice shook when she said that.

"And there's something else," Nikki said. She had no mercy. "I knew you before Merlin did."

"You're lying," Allie said. "You're just stalling."

"Am I, _Freya_?"

Allie felt her blood run cold.

"You were just a little Druid girl who lived with her family by a lake."

"Shut up."

She ignored her. "And then one day you killed someone."

Allie chewed the inside of her cheek. _I _said,_ shut up._

"And his mother cursed you to kill every night at midnight," Nikki finished. "Even the Druids were scared of you. You knew no difference between them and anybody else. You even killed your own kind. _Hunted_ them, when need be. That's the only reason you cared about Merlin, cuz he was the only person who _wanted_ you. Who wasn't _scared_ of you. If you hadn't been cursed, if Uther hadn't hated the Druids, if Arthur wanted you in Camelot, you would have ran from Merlin's side quicker than you almost broke that track record in school tryouts."

"Why are you doing this?" Allie whispered.

"Doing _what_?" Nikki's eyes widened. "God, Allie, can't you see I'm _helping _you? This is the best thing that's ever happened to you."

"Yeah, like a flesh-eating virus!" she shot back.

"You can be with Will without feeling so conflicted," Nikki pointed out. "Isn't that what you wanted?"

What I _want_ is my friend back, Allie thought angrily. "You had no right to take his life!"

Nikki's nostrils flared. "The world can't hold two people with such powerful magic." She glanced down at the cup. "Miles knew this."

"This isn't _about_ magic," Allie cried. "This is all about you getting your stupid revenge!"

"Come now." Nikki cocked her head. "We don't have to be enemies. You aren't cursed in this life, whatever you've done. With Miles out of the way, you might actually have a chance at being decent. You are the reincarnation of a Druid. Not a powerful one, but still. We could be valuable to each other. Mordred is helping me now, but who knows how long that'll last? Sooner or later, we'll have to go off on our own. We (Nimueh and Freya) can make Will a leader, if you like." Allie must have looked shocked, because she went on, "Oh, in front of Mordred I can act like I want to destroy Will. But, really, I have no problem with _him_. I could make Will great. And you could help me."

"I would never work with you!" Allie shouted. "Never! _I_ will make Will a great leader. _I'll_ take Merlin's place. But _you_ aren't going to be around to see it!" She pulled the sheet off the staff.

Nikki laughed. Laughed, like it was seriously funny. "I'm the reincarnation of a priestess of the Old Religion. You, little Freya Pennington, are just a Druid. Whatever childish rabbit-in-hat tricks you have up your sleeve won't hurt me."

"You're wrong." Allie had complete faith that Miles would help her.

Coolly, Nikki regarded the staff. "Oh, I get it. You think Miles can wiggle out of my spell enough to destroy me, so long as he has you doing the foot-work. That's it, isn't it?" She smiled. "So long, Merlin." Her fingers grasped the Cup of Life. "Pity," she said to the chalice. "Together we could have ruled the world." Tilting the rim, she slowly poured out whatever rainwater was inside.

Allie felt frozen in place. _No_! She couldn't take his life. He couldn't die for no reason. Inside her practically paralyzed chest, her heart beat like a hammer. Why wasn't Miles _doing_ something? Why wasn't the stupid staff shooting out beams or rays or whatever, knocking Nikki to the ground or vaporizing her, or whatever it was supposed to do? Wasn't he strong enough? Was it _her_? Was she too weak to use whatever power he could lend her? Was she not acting as fast as she needed to?

How could she act? She couldn't move. And, in addition, she didn't know what she had to do. Miles was supposed to _help_ her! She didn't know magic. Not like he did. Nikki was right; she was just a reincarnated Druid who didn't know how to use her gift, if she even _had_ it, in this life.

Nikki was right?

That snapped her more than half out of it. Nikki was _not_ right. Not about Miles, and not about _her_. She was not the horrible person Nikki tried to tell her she was. She _did_ love Miles. She loved Will, too, and she'd been conflicted about what to do, but she wouldn't have left Merlin. Not here, and definitely not in Camelot. Merlin wasn't _just_ the first person to want her and not be scared; he was the first person to _understand_ her and the first person _she_ understood back. There was a difference. She'd never known anyone like him.

If she had to lose him, it wouldn't be like this.

And, still, there was this awful ache in her chest, like she just knew, when Nikki poured out the Cup of Life, that it was too late. That, back at the hospital, poor Miles was going fast.

_No_.

Allie clenched her jaw and balled the fist that wasn't holding the staff. She let all the anger and hurt she felt come out in a single look directed at Nikki, who was standing up on the boulder now. "You should not have killed my friend."

Like she was unconcerned, Nikki (still on the boulder) turned her back. But something, some sense of impeding doom, made her twist her head back around again.

Allie felt a rush of power jolt through the staff and her fingers. It was a lot like the zap she'd felt when she'd pulled it out from under the bed earlier. Like electricity.

Electricity.

She concentrated with all her might. And for one second there, she felt like Miles was standing right next to her. It was as if his hand was over hers, holding onto the staff, too. It was like they were doing this together.

A bolt of magical lightning shot out and went straight for Nikki. She didn't scream or even make a single sound. One minute, she was there. The next, Allie had blinked, the lightning had stopped, and she was gone.

Nearby, Anna disappeared too. It was a tricky thing, messing with the Cup of Life, especially as part of a pact. Mordred and Morgana were still alive and out there, somewhere. There was no getting around that, but Allie had the feeling they wouldn't be bothering Will for a while. They'd suffered a massive defeat today. She felt a little sorry for Morgan, though, even if she _had_ helped poison Miles. It had to be hard, losing a sister. And most likely in _two_ lifetimes now, at that. But someday Morgan wouldn't be a little girl anymore. Someday she'd be a grown up, probably out for revenge, possibly still working with Mr. Moore. They'd have to be ready for her, in the future, when the time came.

For now, Nikki and Anna were gone.

Unfortunately, they weren't the only ones. Allie had the most horrible feeling that she was suddenly alone rushing from her fingertips to her toes. The staff had been vibrating against her palm, but now it was stiff, and growing shorter.

She looked. It was just a pen again. Just a pen. No, not just a pen. She tucked it away in her pocket. It had belonged to Miles. _That_ made it special, whether or not it was still magical. It was all she had left of him now: his pen and her memories. They'd have to hold her for a long time.

A whimper escaped her. Allie's knees finally gave way and she fell on her side, looking up. It had stopped raining. The battle was over and King Arthur's side had won. She should be overjoyed. But, instead, she just felt sort of quiet and lost inside. The world had been spinning, wildly and totally out of control. Now it was at a screeching halt.

"Allie?"

She turned, still on the ground, recognizing the voice. "Will."

"You okay?"

"I'm fine." _Just finished saving the world from a reincarnated priestess hellbent on revenge, that's all._ _No big deal._ "A little tired, maybe."

"You find her yet, Will?" Marco stepped out from the other end, jumping up on the boulder.

"He found me," Allie confirmed, taking Will's hand.

He helped her to her feet. "You're shivering."

Allie nodded. "Got a little wet."

Marco glanced at her neck.

She noticed. "Oh, right." She took off the Order of the Bear medallion. "Sorry, Marco. I didn't mean to run out with it. It was kind of a spur of the moment thing."

"Nikki?" he asked, coming to the edge of the boulder and taking the medallion from her out-stretched hand.

"She's gone," Allie told him. "Anna, too."

"I was so worried about you," Will said, putting his arm around her shoulders and pulling her close to him.

"Tell me," Allie said quietly, blinking back tears, letting Will hold her but keeping her eyes fixed on Marco's face. She couldn't make herself look at Will, already having noticed his eyes were red, that he'd obviously been crying before he and Marco came to find her. "Miles died, didn't he?"

_*-Four Weeks Later-*_

Allie got on her knees and looked down at the tombstone. She still couldn't believe her best friend had been gone a month.

"There's so much," she croaked out brokenly, "I want to say to you. But most of it's going to have to wait until we meet in Avalon. Things are going good here, though I guess you probably already know that. Jen and Lance got back together. I saw them holding hands yesterday in the park. I didn't want to go, but Will said I should. Plus, I knew you'd tell me to get my butt out of bed and start living again, so..." She closed her eyes, inhaled, and shook her head. "_Anyway_, they seem really happy. Funny how they still don't have a clue about all this reincarnation stuff. Mr. Guy gave this _incredible _speech at your funeral. I swear, even _Marco _cried like a baby." She had to stop, she was getting too choked up. "So we're going to be okay. I'm taking care of Arthur. And watching out for Mordred and Morgana, just in case." She sniffled. "But...I... I miss you so much." Tears rolled down her cheeks. "And sometimes I just can't wait to see you again."

The wind blew through the graveyard, making an iron gate a few feet away creak and a few fallen leaves swirl in a miniature cyclone.

"This... This is for you." She looked down at her hands, closed together, and whispered a strange non-English word that had come to her the other day seemingly out of nowhere.

When she opened her hands, there was a little red rose. Her smile bittersweet, she put the rose on his grave.


	16. Chapter 16

**AN: This chapter takes place some years after the last one. This is also the very last chapter. Gosh, I can't believe this story is done! I've had such a blast writing it. **

Will was re-elected President of the United States. Not really surprising. The only kook crazy enough to run against him never had a chance. Allie was proud of him, but she had the strangest feeling that her time with William Wagner was coming to an end.

She was going home.

She wasn't sure exactly _how_ that was supposed to happen, but she became increasingly sure it _would_. Everything around her felt different, including the air and the light. Even people's voices sounded softer and far away.

It had been years since Miles died, back during her Avalon High days, and even though very few days had gone by where he hadn't come to her mind at least once, it seemed that the last couple of weeks were chalk-full of thoughts of him. Her memories of her best friend, even some she'd had trouble recalling the details of only a month ago, were sharp and clear, like a movie on a plasma screen behind her closed eyelids. Especially her second-to-last memory of him: his face in the water from the broken snow globe, his words to her.

_Will gets you in this life, but when it's over, you come home to me in Avalon, got it?_

For a long time she'd pushed thoughts of what Avalon would be like, what seeing him again would feel like, because it'd become too painful. Now those same thoughts didn't hurt at all, somehow.

She had no idea how she was supposed to get to Avalon, but the trip didn't particularly worry her. It was more what was at the end of it. Was Miles going to be happy to see her again? Would he be proud of how she'd taken care of Will? She knew he'd been with her all along, really, but the realization that she was going to see him-_see_ her dead friend from _high school_-was jarring. Even though he was Merlin and she was the Lady of the Lake, it was still kind of, well, _weird_. But in a good way, of course.

Several people (including Marco, who actually turned out to be an _amazing_ secret service agent) had asked her if she was feeling okay. They thought she looked flushed and dazed. Maybe at least _some_ of them just figured she was really happy for Will. Anyway, she told them she was fine and found a moment to go up to her room.

Allie remembered opening the door, but not a whole lot else. She thought her foot had slipped and she'd hit her head, except she didn't feel the thump when she landed and it didn't hurt. The only reason she thought she must have fallen was because she was lying down all of a sudden.

Her eyes were closed. She moaned softly and shifted one foot, wiggling her toes. That was odd. She felt fabric. There shouldn't have been fabric there; she was wearing a tailored suit that ended at her knees. Well, she _had _been wearing pantyhose, but that definitely wasn't nylon her feet brushed against. In fact, her feet, fabric notwithstanding, felt partly cold, not at all like they had stockings on them.

The fabric was soft and rich, fit for a princess. It felt exactly like the dress that had pooled at her feet in one of her dreams. The dream she'd had right before her last conversation with Miles.

Under her, the world rocked back and forth. Had someone picked her up and put her on a waterbed? This reminded her of when she was a teenager and had enjoyed floating on an inflatable raft in the pool. And, naturally, of the time Miles had set said raft on _fire_.

A breeze blew against her face. She opened her eyes and wound up staring at a bright, almost cloudless (except for a few white, puffy exceptions scattered here and there), blue sky.

_Why am I _outside_? _Allie blinked and lifted up one hand. Those didn't even look like her fingers. The whole back of her hand might have belonged to somebody else. Weren't people supposed to know the back of their own hands like really well or something?

It took a minute, but she eventually figured out she was floating in a boat like the Lady of Shalott.

"What in the world?" Her voice sounded different, too. Since when did she speak with a British accent?

She sat up quickly and some of her hair fell over her shoulder. It was dark, not blond.

Taking a deep breath, she leaned over the edge of the boat and looked down at her reflection in the calm, sunlit water. The face that stared back at her, eyes wide with stunned amazement, was not what she expected. It was _her_ face, not a complete stranger's after all, but it wasn't Allie Pennington-Wagner's face. Once, in another life, Miles (as Merlin) had seen that same face staring up at him from the spilled water of Avalon. Once that same arm attached to the hand that reached up and touched the side of her face, leaning further over still, trying to figure out if any of this was real, had given Merlin Excalibur so he could kill the soldiers in an immortal army that had belonged to Morgause and Morgana.

I'm looking at my face from _Camelot_, Allie thought. That's what I looked like when I was Freya the Druid and the Lady of the Lake.

Why did she look like Freya again? Was it because she was coming home? She shouldn't be so surprised (she'd known since high school that one day, when Arthur no longer needed her help, when she'd gotten him to his full potential, when her part in the story was over, she was Avalon-bound), but she couldn't help being a little awed.

She must have upset the boat, leaning like that, cuz next thing she knew, _splash_! She was in the water.

It was shallow, where the boat had drifted off to, very near a low, green land with a lot of misty fog hovering over it. She could stand up, finding that the water in that spot was only up to the middle of her thighs. It made the bottom of her dress heavy, weighing her down and making her trip over her own two feet, getting her whole front wet, but aside from that it was okay.

When she tripped, pulling herself back up, her face dripping with lake water, she noticed a figure coming out of the fog, walking towards the edge of the land.

Whoever it was, she was pretty sure, was headed straight for her.

For a second she thought it was Miles and her heart skipped a beat with excitement. _Finally_! There was so much she'd never had time to tell him, so much she'd been confused about back then, so many things that she wished he knew.

What would he think when he saw her like this?

But, then, the person came clearly into view. It was an old man with a long white beard who sort of hobbled slightly when he walked. For his age, he looked healthy enough, she guessed. There _was _something familiar about him, but Allie couldn't put her finger on it.

He squinted at her and came closer. "Freya?"

Allie moved too quickly, slipped in a muddy spot, and fell down in the water again.

The old man chuckled. "_Careful_." He leaned over and held out his hand for her to take.

"Thank you." She took the hand gratefully and let him pull her up all the way onto the land. "Can you tell me something?"

"Sure."

"Is this Avalon?"

"Yep, it sure is." His voice was slightly raspy, which gave it a slightly peevish edge, but it was friendly. He sounded happy to see her for some reason. Like her, he had a British accent.

"Thanks for helping me," she said, smiling. "I just arrived."

"I _know_," said the old man. "I've been waiting for you. I've got to be honest, I thought you would be happier to see me."

She blinked at him, studying the wrinkled face behind his waist-length beard.

He laughed. "You have no idea who I am, do you?"

"Sorry," she apologized. "No."

"Allie! I mean, _Freya_! It's _me_."

"Me who?" She was sorry, like she told him, but she seriously couldn't place him.

"_Santa_," he said sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

"Oh my god!" She gaped at him in disbelief. "_Miles_?"

"Well, I'm Merlin again now, just like you turned back to Freya," he explained. "I haven't been Miles since the last time we talked."

"What happened?" she asked. "You're-"

"Old now," he sighed. "I know."

"I was going to say suddenly capable of growing facial hair. But, yeah, now that you mention it, that too."

He smiled at that. "God, I missed you."

She nodded. "But I thought Avalon was timeless. Why did you _age_?" And so _fast_, at that.

"It was after Nimueh poured out the Cup of Life," he told her. "I had to hang on and use my magic to help you defeat her, but because she had such a hold on me, and I still had to channel a lot of my power to you afterward, too, it took its toll." He reached out and touched the side of her face gently. "Does it matter?"

She shook her head, throwing herself into his arms. "No. Not anymore." All that mattered was that they were together again.

"But," he whispered in her ear, "I think, now that you've finally come, I might have one last magic trick."

"Wha-" she began, pulling away from him.

His long white beard turned brown, then black, then shrunk several inches until finally it was completely gone. His wrinkles smoothed and his whole face changed. The only thing that stayed the same were his eyes.

Standing before Freya now, as she still grasped his arms, was a young black-haired warlock.

At first, she felt almost unbearably shy of him. He was like her Miles (in some ways, _very_ like him, in fact), but not. This was Merlin from Camelot. _The_ Merlin. Not an old doddering man, either, but the famous magician in the prime of his life. Then, all at once, it washed over her. Magically, all of her memories of being Freya, of having been in love with Merlin before their time together was tragically cut short when she was killed by an unknowing young Prince Arthur, were back in her head as if they'd never left it. As if she hadn't, as Allie Pennington, had barely even a dim knowledge of all this.

"_Merlin_..." Freya whispered, leaning forward and kissing him on the lips.

Kissing her back, his mouth pressing against and clinging to hers, Merlin scooped her up into his arms, holding her like he intended to carry her off.

She slipped her arms around his neck. This was how she had felt when he held her before she died in Camelot. Except, this time, she had no pain from a wound. There was no taint, no blemish, everything was perfect. Being held above the ground like this, in these loving arms, Freya thought she might as well have flown to heaven, up in the sky still, never intending to come back down.

When they finally broke apart, Merlin leaned his forehead against hers. "There's no more." Freya pulled back slightly and rested her head contentedly on his shoulder. "That's the end of magic."

_*-The End-*_


End file.
